Most of my memories of high school make me seriously laugh now, which is largely due to the fact that we were a group of girls, in a small town, with nothing to do. I remember a lot of time spent driving around town and drinking vanilla Cokes from Top Spot. This now leads me to believe that gas was cheaper back then, Ja Rule and the rest of the Fast and Furious soundtrack are amazing, and we were lucky as hell that we never got in an accident. I also spent a considerable amount of time in my friend's kitchens where we would feast on bags of Marshmallow Mateys, copious amounts of Fruit by the Foot, and discuss the boys which, let's be honest, would never date us. Of course this never stopped us from giving them nicknames, (Melon being my favorite- that guy still has a GIANT head), plotting what we'd say to them during our next IM conversation, discussing who had "got on" who, and "decorating" cars of those that went above and beyond being general assholes to us with whatever was handy (Neccos, silly string, soap, you name it, we had it in our arsenal). Man, we were cool.
One of my favorite high school memories was that we would ask and answer our dates in creative ways to go to a dance. My best execution of this was for my senior homecoming where I filled my date's room with 30 giant trash bags of shredded paper followed by a sign that said, "I didn't mean to make a mess, just to tell you my answer is yes." Mean? Yes. But in my defense, he had filled my bed with Lucky Charms a week prior, (something about being lucky and charmed to go to the dance with me). Payback however, was not quite as fun, as we went horseback riding for our date and we ended up getting bucked off with my date using my face as a landing platform. Ask anyone from my class and they will remember the girl that spent homecoming with a bloody nose and looked like a swollen dinosaur complete with two black eyes for the next two weeks.
Besides breaking my nose, I love thinking back to things that seemed so terribly horrible then, because they now make me giggle at the joys of adolescence. For example:
- The day that I had to watch "The Miracle of Life" in health class surrounded by the boy's soccer team- damn you alphabetical order
- "I'm Eric's mom..."
- Crying because a certain guy told me he had gotten valedictorian over me -he may be a lawyer now, but I still think I'm smarter than him, ha.
- "Playing" volleyball for two years and only remembering getting nailed in the head with a ball during a game
- Breaking a giant and expensive vase after a rather vigorous game of Body Body
- Cardboard kitty
- Sadie Hawkins with Mr. Thanks for the Ride
- "Who's Jon!?!"
During my visit I decided to do my run at my high school's track. With each lap I thought, "Wow, this still kills me as much as it did when I was 15," at which point I promptly twisted my ankle. How's that for irony? Well, I didn't die after my run, nor did I due to the low points that can occur during high school. Despite the struggles of adolescence and that constant feeling that my little world was falling down because of a bad grade or a bleached hair guy (apparently that was big in the millennium), I think I came out pretty fabulous. What I wish most of all is that I could go back in time and tell myself, and all of my friends that we are sweet, intelligent, caring, and beautiful people and to have more confidence in who we are. That all of those negative thoughts about yourself are moments wasted. That those girls who are mean in high school are still bitches and you will give them so little thought in the future that you can't remember their names. That those guys that didn't call you when you were 17 will still not call you when you are 28, but by then you'll be smart enough to know better. Usually. And that you should start waxing your eyebrows much, much sooner. There is no amount of money in the world that you could pay me to relive high school, but I'm a firm believer that every experience in your life has a purpose-so have no regrets and never throw away your yearbooks. Class of '03 woot woot!
