Ten Years Ago

I graduated from high school a little over ten years ago. It's hard to believe it's been that long. Ten years. Wow.

There are many ways in which it seriously only feels like a few weeks ago. I can still look back and remember with lots of clarity and great joy all the details of those four years. Unlike most people I talk with, I loved high school. I loved nearly everything about it. I made great friends - a few of whom I'm still in contact with. I loved (most of) my teachers (yes, I was that brown-noser...I actually was offended and upset that I didn't get voted "best in with teachers" my senior year...are you kidding me?! ).

I have so many fond memories - of chorus, yearbook, drama club, certain classes, certain teachers, student council, service projects, walk outs, bomb threats (surprisingly enough, I grew up in a very rural area....), crushes, proms....of a million things that certainly would hold no meaning for most of you (Laura, you and I'll have to reminisce on our own time! :) ). But, seriously, I loved high school.

But, in so many other ways, high school feels a lot longer ago than ten years. So much has happened. I've met so many people. Been so many places. Done so many things. Experienced so much...good and bad. Changed SO MUCH - personally, mentally, spiritually, psychologically.

And because I'm so different (and yet the same) as I was all those years ago, there's a huge part of me that wants to head back east for my high school reunion that's taking place in a few weeks. I'd love to see how different (and yet the same) I am around the people I knew so well once upon a time. And I'd love to see how different (and yet the same) so many of them are too. And, yet, I fear that many of them aren't any different...and that scares me.

The few times that I've had chance to interact with, or better said observe, the vast majority of them, they aren't much different. Still living in the same small town with small aspirations and small hopes. Still hanging out, exclusively, with the same small group of friends they knew in high school, still drinking the same drinks in the same bars. It's all rather depressing. I remember Christmas a few years ago, Laura and I went out for drinks while we were both home from college for break. We ran into lots of people doing the exact same thing we were - reconnecting with high school friends while home from college. But, there were also quite a few people who weren't just home for break and weren't just reconnecting with old friends. They were regulars, there every night, doing the same sad thing with no aspirations...and it really depressed me...especially one guy I had gone to elementary school with. To hear that he went there every night after he got off work just to see what people were up to was so depressing. So sad. I wanted so much more for him, for all of them.

So, maybe, as much as I'd like to get to reconnect with my classmates and see what everyone's up to, I'm glad that distance, (lack of) vacation time and (lack of) money limit me from being able to make the trip back East.

Perhaps I'm arrogant to think that I'm any different or better than my classmates...I mean, really, I may have gotten out of the small town but on paper, do I have that much to show for it? No, not on paper....single, receptionist, homeowner, church elder, small paycheck, some international travel, on the worship team at my church. Yeah, there's not much. Or at least not much that most of them would care to know about....but, at least I'm in search of something bigger and better than doing the same thing with the same people in the same place for years and years. At least I'm out there trying and succeeding and failing. There has to be more out there, doesn't there?

I sure hope that I'm wrong. I hope that when my classmates get together in a few weeks, they'll all have great stories of successes and failures, of risk, of change, of family, of love, of growth, of happiness...of all the things we were all so hopeful for all those years ago as we walked across the auditorium so naive but so full of hopes, aspirations and dreams.