That 10-year-old feeling returns with angst

Published 8:19 pm Thursday, August 28, 2008

By Staff
Blame it on a multitude of things.
Blame it on the deceptively innocent looking envelope that sat on my counter. The fact that J.C. Penney so ruthlessly commercialized the genius that is John Hughes' 'The Breakfast Club' with their mockery of a commercial…. The fact that Molly Ringwald's new role as the mother of two teenage girls in a new ABC Family television show made me feel so ridiculously old – I had to grab a bottle of wine and my ipod – flooding my ears with "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Minds.
Blame it on that.
Or on the fact that as I found myself feeling that familiar feeling of the high school hallway – as I wandered through one of them this week. All high schools feel the same. Equal parts inadequacy and romanticized angst.
'It' would be the endless round of reflection I subjected myself to the other day upon the arrival of the deceptively innocent looking envelope I mention. It is the one that held the announcement of and invitation to my 10-year high school reunion. It took very little time before I began flooding my ipod with nostalgic playlists and rooting through the corners of my mind for those things called memories.
Just a few days following the arrival of that letter, and drunk on nostalgic idealism, I pulled out an old home movie (a VHS tape no less) of my last few days of high school.
As the VCR whirred, a younger version of myself spoke with a slightly lighter voice. A younger voice. This voice didn't really have a mind of its own yet. This voice playfully whined and swatted at silly little friends who threatened not give out coveted senior pictures. Only I could know that later, this voice would define itself. Hold interesting conversations in interesting places, rise in thick and adult-size anger, comfort others and sometimes, even, drive them away.
Yeah – all that in the first 30 seconds of this tape. That is so how my brain works.
At one point, the camera is taken from me – and there I am. Smaller on the television screen … round in the face – and other areas – with my rebellion taking the form of a grunge style fashion statement -heavy black boots and a plaid flannel over-shirt tied around my waist. The girl in that tape had a worse fashion sense than she does now. And even worse hair.
Needless to say – it didn't take long for me to begin cataloguing all of my old insecurities. The ones we think we leave behind when we begin the business of growing up – but really stay tucked away in the deep, dark folds of the subconscious – like old notes stuffed into the pages of a yearbook. I was all at once self-conscious and severely critical of every inch of myself just sitting in my own living room.
Had I grown up at all? I wondered.
The stereotypical train of thought leading up to a high school reunion revolves around successes. Did I do what I said I would do, am I married. Do I have children? We develop somewhere along the way – our own tailored markers to define us as human beings. My markers didn't revolve around my career or my personal life. I felt no ill will in those areas. But as I watched myself on the television screen … this incredibly young person what I wondered was – had I learned anything?
And then the 16-year-old version of me began to quiet down, as my 28-year-old one lay staring at the ceiling recounting every possible moment of the last 10 years. And I realized that somewhere … in between graduation and right now … I became a person. A person with a past, a present and a still uncertain future. With as many triumphs as there are tragedies. As many unrequited dreams as there are those that have come true. Maybe it was the 16-year-old me who knew that while insecurities ran rampant -they took the back seat to the moment.
Maybe it's not that we feel, as we face our high school reunions, that we need to prove to everyone else that we've grown up. Maybe we're desperately trying to prove it to ourselves. Sounds easier than it is. But the thing is – those people who will awkwardly fill the room with nametags and nervous husbands and wives – are probably feeling the same way. And though we may have to get to know each other now – we knew each other when we were kids. We knew each other then. Before all the rest of it. And those versions of us … shouldn't be forgotten. So here's to a Saturday night in September ..where I'll relive my teenage years. With a serving of romantic angst, adult perspective and a little help – from my friends.