Haunted by high school

I’m constantly drawn back to high school memories.

I feel like more happened in those 4 years than in the totality of my 20s.

I guess high school is supposed to be a launching pad, but for me it was a scary corn maze where I was blindfolded and all the hay was on fire.

I had an eating disorder evaporated to 99 pounds (scary low point).

I scored in the top 100 PSAT scores for the entire district AND I got in the 97th percentile of the real verbal SATs. (High point)

But I got pulled out at one point and went to behavioral health school. (Medium low point.)

I met the guy I would spent 5 1/2 years with. (High point)

I made a best friend I would eventually lose, and that loss haunts me to this day. (Mixed point)

I got mono and was out for months. (A higher low point)

I told everyone I had bipolar disorder because it seemed like the best excuse for my erratic and sometimes embarrassing behavior even though I wasn’t diagnosed with it until I was 20. (A... prophetic point?)

I got my first job at Lifetime Fitness. (Last high point.)

I almost didn’t graduate. But I did. (THE POINT.)

What DIDN’T happen??

I’m still nostalgic, though. Despite all of that insanity. (Granted, it was peppered with a few victories and validations of my intelligence and resourcefulness ).

AND despite the fact that I had one of those phones where you had to press numbers a few times to get one letter for a text. (giggle emoji.)

I can’t account for all of the nostalgia. I was miserable during that time. I think it was because there were so many “firsts”, and now everything feels played out. I’m in the workforce. I have a job, but no career. I have no more romantic interests. I have some money and a car, but nowhere I really want to go.

I don’t know if I really had dreams in high school. It was day to day grit, blood and guts, destruction, rebuilding, and survival. It was laying in the corner of my room screaming. It was falling in/out/in love.

It was more than any one event.

I wish I’d written more during those years, but the memories might be just enough. Maybe all I can stomach.

I lived, though. What more could ANYONE possibly ask for? My favorite album is called “Live Through This” by Hole. It was in middle school, high school, and I’ll probably say the same in 50 years. That’s no coincidence.

I’m bitter and angry today. Maybe a part of it will be always. But I’m also drunk on my own innate goodness and perseverance, as well as that of others.

It’s going by fast now. Too fast. I’m 30 steps into life. And it’s not measured in what I’ve achieved, finished, not finished, found joy in, given up on, hated, loved, or been traumatized by.

It‘s who I have become in the process.