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I recently have been chatting with one of the boys in this picture, thanks to Facebook. I've heard
a vicious rumor that he is no longer a boy, but rather a forty year old man with a wife and child, but in my mind he will always be the teenage boy that I knew.
Talking with him has been Really Neat for me, and hopefully at least A Little Neat for him. It
made me think about a lot of things, so I dug out these pictures, which made me think about them even more.
My senior year in high school always felt like a single and isolated event, rather than being connected to the rest of my teenage years. My first year in high school was spent somewhere else -- Pittsburgh -- and then we moved. Strange as it may sound, I spent the next two years just struggling to adjust, and it wasn't until senior year that I had -- or had even met -- this group of friends.
In a way, that makes that time period and those friends more special, because it was so fleeting.
We had fun together for a year, then all went off our separate ways.
I look at these pictures and remember so much: The party at Maureen's house where we
watched The Sure Thing and all belted out Rod Stewart's "Infatuation." Stopping at Dunkin Donuts on our way to go take the AP English test, and laughing when we realized we had started to drive away with the box of Munchkins on top of our car. Watching Ferris Beuller's Day Off at Vicki's house and thinking it was the greatest movie ever. Feeling like the whole day was ruined when the boy I liked wasn't in Calculus class that day. Going to Six Flags with three of my girlfriends on the day of prom because none of us had dates.
I could go on and on.
I see these pictures and have an almost aching desire to jump inside them,
like the chalk drawings in Mary Poppins -- or the "skidoo" on Blue's Clues.
I look at them and remember how exuberant and carefree and silly and bubbling with excitement we all were.
I wish I could go back and visit them. Visit that.
I don't think I would say my life was better back then. It isn't that. But today I have a mortgage and endless amounts of laundry. My husband just got a pay cut and our health insurance premiums are about to go up -- again. I have watched one of my children be literally on the brink of death, unable to move, for almost three straight weeks. I've spent days myself in a bed in ICU, unable to even use the bathroom, while various other people took care of my children for me.
And yes, I wish I could go back, for just a few hours ... to the times when we laughed and shrieked continually about Nothing in Particular, when we decorated ourselves with long streams of toilet paper and danced outside in the dark at my birthday party, and when I spent the night at Adrienne's house and babbled endlessly over trying to decide who I liked more, Bryan or Scott.
I haven't seen, or even heard from, most of the people in these photos for well over a decade. I wish they could somehow read this post -- to know I'm thinking of them, to know all the nice memories I have about them 22 years later.
I guess I'd like to tell them Thank You.
4 comments:
ah, adolescent nostalgia! Powerful thing , isn't it? This was a nice post. It made me think back to my own High School Days. Though I'd say our experiences were very different in some ways, universally similar in others. Thinking back to that certain age always brings to mind the Indigo Girls song, Love's Recovery...
"There I am in younger days, star gazing,
Painting picture perfect maps of how my life and love would be
Not counting the unmarked paths of misdirection
My compass, faith in love's perfection
I missed ten million miles of road I should have seen
Meanwhile our friends we thought were so together
Left each other one by one in search of fairer weather..."
Cheers to memories of the good old days, thanks for sharing yours!:)
Oh my goodness. Your post about brought me to tears. Those days are so hard for me to look back on. You and I were so similar at LHS--both having started high school somewhere else and both having to adjust to such an abnormally huge new school. I was always in awe of you--your talent with the piano and your extreme intelligence. I wish we had known each other better back then. I often wish I could go back to that time with the maturity I now have. It would have made that all so much easier, but isn't that the truth for anyone who looks back at *gasp* nearly 40 years old! I hope that you find some of the friends you remember and get to reconnect. Thank you Jen for such an honest and lovely post! Erin
Agreed - the good old days. I'm glad I was a part of your fleeting time in Marietta at our beautiful old high school. I remember well the days and glad you shared your senior year with us. Hope you chose Bryan. Although Scott was a much better bass guitar player ;-)
I wonder sometime where everyone landed, too after all these years...
Oh Jen,
You captured so much in these few paragraphs! Yes, what a special and innocent time that was...and how awesome to share it with you and the other girls. Thank you for taking the time to capture and share your memories -- this was a gift! I never reflect back on those days -- being so focused on the present and immediate tasks at hand.
Luckily, these days I get to "work" with several dear girlfriends and, I'm not embarrassed to say, that we often find ourselves giggling over the most ridiculous things -- but those are the best laughs, deepest felt and most meaningful when shared with people (so few) you can really count on and love! You and the girls were those friends of mine back in '87. It was the highlight of that time of my life (that and working at B.Dalton!) -- thanks again for reminding me of those carefree days (as Bryan put it) at beautiful Lassiter (which BTW just ranked #354 out of the top 1500 US high schools!) Go Trojans! --Robyn Bancroft
P.S. I'll be seeing Young Sun and meeting her beau this weekend. She's lived in Charlotte for past 10+ years. They are visiting his family in Dayton and we hope to join them for dinner Sunday night here in Cincinnati. I doubt that this trip will be spent reminiscing about "the good 'ole days" since we'll have our men with us! But check out a few photos of YS and me on my FB page when we rendezvous'd with Maureen in Charleston last summer (Maureen was in US for month or so on vacay with her family).
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