20 Years Out

Today I took my daughter, who will be a freshman this coming school year, to the high school. I've only been to this high school one other time when she had artwork in the student art show.  The school sits beyond a nice neighborhood where we often go trick or treating because there are street lights and sidewalks, and that is a commodity in my town. And it sort of hit me because sometime this week, 20 years ago, I graduated high school

Twenty years, wow where did time go. It actually seems like long ago, more like another life. And maybe it was. Because maybe I realize that this year I turn 38 and soon I will be 40. My life in these last twenty years feel blurry, I guess I try not remembering the past or keeping the past alive.

Probably for most people, high school was not the best time for me. But then it wasn't the worst either. For three years, I went to Merrimack in New Hampshire. I graduated from Quakertown and went there for my senior year.

No, I don't get invited to reunions. Why would I go anyway? Except for a few people, no one would remember me anyhow. Sometime at the end of my senior year, the girl who ran around taking pictures for year book and also put together the senior slide show, tracked me down saying she needed to take a picture for the senior slide show. I said it wasn't a big deal. And she begged saying that it's tradition. Fine, so she took some doofy snapshot in the auditorium on the stage steps. I barely remember the senior slide show. I did have a poem published in the year book. And I'm sure they were like who is that? Did I have a class with her?  Senior skip day? I skipped school to go to work.

There were more then 300 people graduating that year. Because of rain, they had it indoors. I had to rush around looking for extra tickets. I had to be nice to the neighbor and invite him to my party because he gave me a ticket.  Since my last name starts with an "S" I graduated exactly before 57 people. It was hot and humid and the pantyhose I wore to make my grandmother happy were falling down and my cap was askew. And then my name was called and there was this feeling of completeness- accomplishment. I looked across the over filled gym and just a saw a blank slate. I guess I should've known then what I know now, when everyone sees their future all mapped out with an action plan, mine was blank.  That night things did change- a month later I turned 18.  It doesn't matter if your friends say nothing will change, it will. And you will change. And I know that moment, it felt like I would start learning who I was.

High school graduation is a big deal.  So here I am twenty years out and it was another lifetime. The bridge between childhood and adulthood. High school eventually fades. Memories are fading fast only to be brought on by a song, but even the details begin to hide and they become shadows blurs.