A Few Words for the Several-Years-Distant Graduates

[rockinlibrarian]

Technically I do not have time to post: I've got One Book to work on, naptime to use productively, and thunder rolling in the distance telling me that keeping my computer turned on could be BAD. I might have left the fact that I attended my 15-year high school reunion yesterday disappear into the never-been-blogged-about wasteland that is the majority of my life, shockingly enough, except...

...I can't shake this need to link you back to the theoretical Successful Alumn Commencement Speech I posted last spring. Sure, it's likely -- maybe even probable-- that anyone who is reading this has already read that, seeing as it was only a few months ago. But I can't stop thinking about it since the picnic yesterday (yes, my class was smart this year and threw a picnic-- THAT'S the way to do a reunion), and I'm inclined to TYPE IT ALL OVER FOR YOU if you don't just click through and read it. Because it's what I want to say. Still. But now with examples.

First of all, the reunion was a perfect way to see what I meant about people ...exceeding the expectations of their classmates. Not that anyone had grown up into anything ALL that impressive and successful. But they'd all certainly grown up, into their own lives, in their own ways, ways that they certainly didn't require their former classmates to define for them. Everyone Had Lives, lame as some of those lives may be.

Second, there's me. Official Shyest Girl of the Class of '96. In a locked post a couple weeks ago I mused about how great it would be to be Inhibitionless Amy, able to jump into the fray and speak whatever is on my mind-- you know, exactly how I am on this blog, except LIVE. And I'm still not Inhibitionless Amy. I still kept to the sidelines, eyeing the crowd, waiting for moments, reluctant to approach people. But you know what? I HELD MY OWN. I walk and stand like I have a right to be there. I have things to say and I'm proud of my nerditude and I can even, in the right circumstances, be marginally WITTY. Fact is if a stranger had been asked to pick out of that crowd the classmate who'd been voted Shyest, there's a good chance they wouldn't have gotten it right.

Which means I've made Progress. When I feel like I'm spinning my wheels in the bog of my social blah-ocity, it helps to know that I'm farther ahead than I once was. That it's not a hopeless struggle. That there's a point.

And I -- ME, MYSELF-- really am more than the labelled box I used to be shoved in at school. And knowing that really does make it easier to hold myself, to present myself, as someone worth talking with.

Comments

[sal_amanda]

Sounds like you had a decent time, then. I don't think we had a 15 year. We managed to have an 11 year since people didn't quite get things planned in time to do a 10. I didn't make it, though, as we were in Montana visiting John's cousin who was living there at the time. I did go to the 5 year we had, which turned into a very epic night for me in a very epic year in my personal life. And let's just say that I met John within the next year and he rescued me from that roller coaster disaster I was living.

I'm sure there will be a 20, which scarily enough will only be in three more years. I don't know how much I care about going. For me, I was never as good friends with people in my own class as I was with the people in the one before me, because I took accelerated math and science classes. And I was in honors English so those folks are the only ones from my class that I was really close with. I knew everyone and was on good terms with everyone, but most of those people I'm on Facebook with anyway. In a way, Facebook takes the fun out of a reunion because you already know what everyone is doing.

But I'm rambling and I also hear some thunder rumbling, telling me it's about time to turn off my computer. ;)

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

What I didn't actually get a chance to say in this post was that, good experience aside, it was actually rather dull. There were a few nice people I talked to, but nobody I was particularly close to. But then, I'm still in touch with the one good friend I HAD in my class, who couldn't come anyway. And I did have more closer friends in other grades! Jason wanted to scope out all the guys I used to like so he could compare himself favorably to them, but all the guys I used to like were in the grade ahead of me! (Although there was one guy I was friendly with back in the day whom I was kind of charmed to see had grown up surprisingly cute-- blatantly geeky, but in a cute way, ie, nobody-else-would-think-so-but-he's-my-type).

So i wouldn't have skipped the experience for the psychological aspect, but as a party it was hardly much exciting!

But my sister lived right down the street so we went and visited her afterward!

[sal_amanda]

I was going to come back and add one other comment, but then never got around to it until finally now. That whole thing about how people grow into themselves and become real people with real lives of their own. John tells me stories about his school social life that make me sad. He was that dork that everyone made fun of, except that he was bigger than everyone so there was no physical attacks, but he was still totally taunted in very obvious ways. And now he's fairly normal and well liked by those who know him. Proof that there is life after high school, thank god.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I'm still not entirely over how badly Angie was treated in high school, as I touched on in the commencement speech post-- probably she is more over it than I am-- just this heavy bit of anger and frustration I lug around with me that rears up whenever subjects of high school or bullying or acceptance or tolerance or WHATEVER come up. And seriously, it was like she went immediately from Complete Outcast to The One Everyone Wants to Befriend the second she got to college (actually, as soon as she came up for High School Open House Sleepover Weekend thing: I had to go to a meeting and I was going to ask her if she wanted to come with me or hang out elsewhere in the dorm, and practically before I'd said a thing she'd wandered off with some of my other classmates to see somebody's book collection and I thought, "Wow, she really IS going to totally fit in here!")

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Progress is good ... I know a few people who are still too much like they were in school.

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

I couldn't really tell from the dullish small-talk how much people had progressed in personality ways, but everyone had changed greatly in looks. They all look like GROWNUPS. And I was kind of impressed that I'd put on LESS grown-up weight than the apparent average. But anyhoo.

[ozma914.livejournal.com]

Age: The great equalizer.

[elouise82.livejournal.com]

I read an article recently - and of course I can't now remember where - about how what our society describes as shyness is actually a good and necessary part of any civilization. Because those who stop and think before acting, who observe more than acting, can save a species from destruction when everyone else just jumps right into action and get themselves killed because they don't think first.

So don't look at your shyness as a bad thing - YOU are helping to save humanity!

(And hey - I found the article! - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/opinion/sunday/26shyness.html?pagewanted=all )

[rockinlibrarian.livejournal.com]

On the other hand it reminds me of something I dreamt the other night. In it I was talking about natural selection to someone, allegedly about animals but it's pretty obviously all symbolic of myself*: "You think excellent camoflage is a good thing, and it is because it keeps the animal from being eaten. But if they don't stand out a LITTLE, they never find a mate, so all that not-being-eaten is for nothing when it comes to the survival of the species!" I guess it's all, as so many things are, a matter of moderation!

*Not that I still need to find a mate. DONE with the reproduction. DONE. But still, the general concept of the thing.