Who we were in high school

There are so many wonderful things to remember about high school.  The friends, the sports, the jokes, the fun teachers, and the trips.  There are also a lot of not so wonderful things to remember about high school.  The so-called friends, the gossip, the failed romances, the bad decisions, and those all too common feelings of teenage angst.  

We should all consider ourselves lucky to have survived such a tumultuous time.  And while I'm sure it was more tumultuous for some rather than others, we all have our own private collections of great and not so great memories.  

At some point during the end of my college career, I was thinking back on high school and my friends from that time, and it amazed me how many of them I simply didn't talk to anymore, as well as how many of them I did not even consider a friend.  Of course, this is what happens after high school as people move on, meet new people, and create new lives and new existences for themselves.  Not a huge revelation by any means. 

The other day I was sucked into that parallel universe we call Facebook, and I found myself cruising through the profiles of a lot of my old high school friends.  Some I had graduated with, some were a few years older, and others who graduated while I was still in middle school.  As I looked at the pictures and posts of these people, I found old feelings being stirred up.  High school feelings.  People who I had been close with at one time or another, people who had intimidated me with their perceived cool factor, and others who I had never been on great terms with but for some reason or another decided I was a Facebook-worthy friend. 

It was a weird sensation, because by all intents and purposes we are all different people now.  Most of these people I never even talk with anymore, and yet those teenage feelings still linger.  They are still there just beneath the surface and no amount of time can diminish them completely.  

This led me to an interesting thought which I'm sure has crossed all our minds at one time or another.  Do we ever really change, or are we simply the same people we were in high school?
And on another note, do we want to be the same person we were in high school?

I for one know I have changed, and all for the better.  I have become more outspoken, not so inclined to follow the lead of others if I don't believe they are right.  I am less inclined to tolerate backstabbing, something I now realize I put up with on almost a daily basis in the halls of my school.  And I have learned how to be in a relationship.  How to love someone truthfully and completely and not worry about what I might be missing with someone else.  

But in other ways I haven't changed....not entirely.  I still try to avoid confrontation, and am still on my endless quest for perfection in everything from writing, to arranging pictures on my TV stand.  I'm not completely comfortable standing out from the crowd, even though I try to pretend I am.  I'm still quiet, still a bit shy, and I still try to spare people's feelings, even if I don't really like them.

It has been almost ten years since I graduated from high school, and in that time I suppose I thought more things about me would be different.  I also thought more things about my life would be different, and maybe they are, just not exactly in the way I pictured all those years ago.  I am still close with a few of the people I graduated with, and over the years I have been able to observe the changes in them, and the way they have grown.  But I have also been able to see how some things about people never change.  The insecurities, the likes and dislikes, the trust, the dependability. 

So what is it about high school that creates these everlasting feelings and traits?  What happens to us during those four years that shapes us for the rest of our lives?  Is it just going to school, or is there more to it than that?

I think it's a little bit of everything.  It's the friends we make, break, and keep.  It's the sports we play, lose, and win.  It's the romances we commit to, break up, regret, but ultimately learn from.  It's the process of being knocked down and learning how to get back on our feet.  A lot of this takes place within the walls of a school, but so much of it also happens outside the walls, and within ourselves. 

I don't think it's a bad thing to be the same person you were in high school.  I also don't think it's a bad thing to change a little along the way.....in fact, it might be impossible not to.  The way I see it, those four years of unpredictability are nothing more than a crash course to what lies in not so far off distance.

Real life.  Which in some ways might actually be scarier than high school.