going back
by bam
i went back today. back to the source of so so much.
i walked the halls. found my way past all the touchstones of my long ago. at so many corners, heard the voices from pages long turned.
stood beneath the clock where someone once asked me to join the underground newspaper. walked past the spot just outside the library where my senior english teacher, the monday after homecoming, when i was the queen who broke the beauty-queen mold, asked me if i’d read, “the demise of the homecoming queen.” i gulped, shook my head no, that long ago morning. wondered then, and months later, if she knew something i didn’t yet know.
only later on, months later on, would i understand the clairvoyancy of that question. it all came back again as the 53-year-old me passed over that spot in the much-waxed square-tile floor.
i walked past the radiators that lined the glass walls, just beyond the cafeteria, where all the cool kids and jocks hung out, where if you were a girl who didn’t feel so sure of how she looked when she walked, who worried that maybe they’d whisper, where you held your breath and walked fast as you could.
i went back to high school today, my high school. because the school is turning 50 and they invited us back, back to talk to the kids. back to talk about how the place stamped us, fed into the whole of who we would become.
i found myself surprised by some of the questions, surprised too by my answers.
what did we most regret, they wanted to know.
what one word would we pick to describe our years there?
what’s changed since we walked the halls?
in no particular order i heard myself say that what i learned in high school was how i would be in the world, how i was the kid who ducked and swerved between groups, didn’t see walls, didn’t like cliques, wouldn’t abide them, who looked for the sparks in everyone from the lonely band of misfits to the jocks to the harvard-bound brainiacs, who figured out how to live with a social fluency that all these years later is there in my back pocket, is there when i need to knock on the door of a stranger and ask to hear the hopes and the dreams and the heartbreak, is there when i need to look in the eyes of my little boy’s teacher and get her to understand that we are a team, are together, and setting our sights on the prize that is a little boy’s mind.
i heard myself say that what i regretted was that i didn’t dive more deeply into the books back in those years, when i was aswirl in all that rushed my way, and all that i thought mattered.
i heard myself say that i was blessed back then to be in high school just after the radical ‘60s and what i wanted when i grew up was to save the world. and how, all these years later, i sure hadn’t saved it but i had taken the time to try to understand a few things.
it’s at once humbling and emboldening to go back, to retrace who we once were, to connect the dots from there to here. to stand quietly under a clock that still lives in the frames of my memory. to stand there, at 53, and remember.
my high school years tumbled in on me in the end. my closing days of high school were raw and hard to think about.
it’s why i don’t go back easily.
but all these years later, walking through the halls alone, finding my way… hearing my voice through the microphone, retracing a someone i’d not so distinctly thought about in a long long time, it was a reunion after all.
and the someone i bumped into was my long long ago self.
have you retraced your steps to a place that deeply mattered in the making of who you are? how did you find the journey? and what did you discover along the way?
Yes, I have….retraced steps taking me back. Both personally and professionally. This has been a process for me…it has been ongoing for some time. It is therapeutic…it brings up a flood of memories…and I am letting them go…a long over due cleaning out the proverbial skeletons in the closet…very healthy. the DHS reunion this weekend, which I am not attending, has brought back many memories…many hard, painful memories from many years ago when I was there…not many fond, fun memories. It was generally not fun, and I did not enjoy it. I was very shy and quiet, and small. An easy target, easy to pick on, and some did. And I did not fight back well. I did not fit in…not a jock, not a scholar, few friends…I somehow survived and got through. It was not an easy time for me, like it is for some others. I was glad to finish and move on! So, my initial reaction this summer, when learning of the reunion was, why go back? I still had too many painful memories. Now, a few months later, looking back…with age comes wisdom….We have all grown and mostly matured. I have learned…having gone to 2 other class reunions, both of which turned out to be a lot of fun…and very therapeutic…have helped me to let go of the past. Relive memories, and then move on to where we are now. We are all a bit older and wiser…there are people on the list that I would like to see again. Now, being in the electronic age and with social media, it is much easier to reconnect and stay in touch. And I am not the quiet, shy person that I was many years ago…although at times I still can be…but I am generally not so any more. so I look at this differently now…and actually would like to be there this weekend…but I am not, so I am following it electronically…I have actually offered to help with planning the next…why not? A great way to get involved and reconnect with people! This, for me, is part of the healing process.I recently attended a 2 day workshop all about letting go, called, appropriately, the ‘release technique’. Letting go of feelings that are all bottled up inside…that has helped immensely with this.
Every day I raise my children is a journey through my own story. As I watch my high schooler make his way through courses, immerse himself in activities, and begin to think about his future two years down the path, I remember my own high school days. Wishing I had immersed myself in activities, taken the chances, gone out on a limb, made different groups of friends, the way he does. Wishing I’d been more outgoing, less afraid. But I remember a girl who smiled and said “Hi” to everyone she knew in the hallway, even the shy ones, the ones who didn’t know her well, and when she broke the beauty-queen mold, how happy I was. She was exactly what a homecoming queen should be. So now, as I look at my son’s classmates, I remember my own, and know how wonderful each and every one, class of ’75 or ’12, is and will be. And I try to include myself. I went to only one reunion, sat in the lobby with my husband, and was so afraid to go into the ballroom we went out for a dinner date instead. Had I known it was a school milestone this weekend, maybe I’d have gone. Maybe I’d even have gone in. Maybe.
the comment just above is so beautiful and so honest it haunts me….what is this high school place that leaves some so scarred and others afraid to walk back in…and oh, for the part of the story where we finally start to see the beautiful parts of who we are, the parts between the wobbly outlines…..my heart breaks for all of those who have not found laughter in high school, who held their breath and waited for it all to end…..for the miracle of moving on, and finding out we’re embraceable after all…..thank you both, jam and another barb, for coming to the table with your deeply honest stories….the reason there is a chair is because it is and always will be a place where we can bring our messy, wobbly, sometimes broken selves. and we can stand in front of mysterious mirrors here, ones that help us see the beautiful in this place that is built of heart and word….