There's Something About High School

Friday night I was at a bar celebrating the birthday of an old high school friend, which of course ended up being a quasi-reunion of sorts, reminding me that my real 10 year reunion is just a short couple of months away. Thinking about my impending class reunion illicits many emotions, curiosity, nervousness... fear. I wonder what people will look like, where they've been, what they are doing now. Are they married? Do they have kids? Did they get fat? But more than anything I wonder how the last ten years of my own life will measure up against everyone else's.

Yes of course we all attend our high school reunions in order to catch up and see what people have been up to, but don't we all secretly wonder how our own experiences and accomplishments will compare? Perhaps I am alone in suddenly wanting to impress people I haven't seen in ten years and probably won't see again for another ten, but you must admit that there is something about high school that makes it such a barometer for life's future accomplishments. At ten years time, we have all already spent twice the amount of time out of high school than we did in it, so why is it then that four short years become such a benchmark for the rest of our lives? I suppose it could be explained that the four years spent in high school are some of the most formative of our young, social lives and that because of this it becomes the template against which all our other social experiences are compared. High school is the time for coming of age, it is the formative years that will prepare us for the future and shape us into our adult selves. However, I can easily say that at the ripe young age of 27 I am almost nothing like my 16 year old self. In fact it is only recently, in the so-called quarter life phase that I have really figured out anything for certain about who I am and what I want, but I guess ultimately I wouldn't be where I am now if I hadn't first been my high school self.  

Every phase of life is a step forward from the last, but we certainly couldn't move forward without those stepping stones behind us and so perhaps the sudden urge to lose five pounds and finish the long-awaited novel is merely a way of justifying to ourselves that we have walked the best path we could.