Ten Years
1 Dec
They all have husbands and wives and children and houses and dogs, and, you know, they’ve all made themselves a part of something and they can talk about what they do. What am I gonna say? “I killed the president of Paraguay with a fork. How’ve you been?”
~Grosse Pointe Blank
I missed my ten-year high school reunion. Not on purpose but lying in bed one morning I sort of did the math and realized that I’d been out of high school for eleven years. Oops.
Had I known about it, I’m not sure I would have gone. High school was a rough time. My mom and I fought non-stop, to the point where I got myself kicked out of the house a few times. Crashing with friends when things got particularly rough.
And while I wasn’t a good student, it was clear that I was smart. So sitting through AP classes that I was smart enough to get into but too lazy, too angry, to put any effort into passing, I isolated myself from everyone around me. I played that angry teenager role to perfection.
I felt like an outsider in those classes. Listening to what my classmates did with their summers (Europe), their weekends (the shore house), their afternoons (cheerleading, sports) I craved the implied stability. It seemed like they had families that were actively working while I was just hanging on to a life I didn’t particularly like with my fingernails.
The fantasy back then was that some day I’d show my classmates, my teachers that I wasn’t just some shitbag in the back of the class with a broken family and anger issues. I used to think that I’d come back for that reunion rich, having revolutionized some industry. And no one would have to ask me what I’d been up to because they would have read about it the paper or heard about it on the news. I’d *stroll* in, gorgeous girlfriend on my arm. Hell, I probably six inches taller in my own head when I dreamed all this up.
At the time I really thought this was all to show them that I had arrived. That I could play on the same level that they all seemed to be playing at. Looking back I can see that really the fantasy was that in ten years, I’d be comfortable with the person I’d become. That instead of all the angst and anger and fear and insecurity that I lived with, I’d be comfortable in my own skin.
Of course, it all seems ridiculous now. That I’d stroll in anywhere to prove anything to people that, over the last thirteen or so years, have become strangers. Or that those external indicators of success would mean anything to people who have gone on to have their own families, their own successes and their own lives. Maybe it means I’m growing up.
Maybe it just means that life has taken to beating me down in entirely new and different ways.
That last sentence made me laugh out loud. Congrats on the new website, it looks clean.
Thanks man. I am digging the new design.
I like the website a lot too. “Clean” is definitely the right word for it.
The only thing the essay made me really wonder was “why [i]was[/i] he so angry?” I know you implied it, but still, I never got the sense that if asked that question, I would know the answer.
Great stuff though, I think you really got the “I’ll show them” fantasy everyone has down well. I especially liked the line where you described how you’d be taller.
I haven’t written about why I was so angry as a kid but that’s coming in future entries. It’s something I want to write about but this shit isn’t always easy.
Amazing post. I’ve always thought that writing helps us get past our struggles.
However — as a current member of those AP classes that has the illusion of the comfortable life with the exotic vacations and athletics — I can assure you that for more than a few of them life was anything but happy and protected. Including myself. I have crazy manic-depression that has pushed me to the brink of suicide multiple times. I know I probably need therapy but I’m not man enough to admit it to anyone in my life. So I’ve resolved myself to trying to accept this part of me and make the best of the hand i’ve been dealt.
Sometimes i wonder if there’s a hell worse than feeling good and thinking you’re going to have pleasant day and then feeling so incredibly bad that you’re willing to throw it all away. It’s like binge drinking. You’re flying high for a time but when you come crashing back down there’s nothing to cushion the fall.
Also, i was watching Grosse Point Blank yesterday. Good movie. And i’m liking the slick new site design.
At my ten year high school reunion, I fell off a curb and landed face first on some concrete.
I don’t think it could have gotten much worse, but now it’s just funny.