At this point in my life I feel I can hardly say... Wow that was a blast from the past. However, tonight was my sister's Honors Convocation at my old high school. She won a scholarship and got to on stage and get recognized for it. It was very cool and I'm very proud of her. But I couldn't help but think about my 4 years at James B. Conant.
I was actually nervous going into my high school because I haven't stepped foot inside the building for almost 5 years. I've picked up my sister a few times and attended like 2 football games but I haven't actually been INSIDE for a long time. I wasn't sure how it would feel roaming the halls. They've done 2 additions since I've left, moving all the departments around except for P.E.
But as I entered the school, it felt the same. Like my high school had been locked in a time warp for all these years and the only thing that had really changed was me. The carpet was still the same ugly blue color that they put in my senior year and then the school flooded 2 weeks later. We had soggy shoes and socks for weeks. The lockers were still this odd off-white color that my sophomore year replaced the nasty green color that had plagued the school since the 1980s.
And I saw my old orchestra director still as poised as always but always teaching his students even minutes before a performance. By the way, my mom still hasn't forgiven him (long story) 5 years later.
I almost expected to turn a corner and see old friends and classmates laughing about some remark my socially awkward senior survey teacher had made. I expected my German teacher to walk down the hall and say in a perfect German accent, "Ah Alison, wie geht's?" Or my P.E. teacher that I had all 4 years to pop out of no where (like she often did) and yell, "Alison, walk faster!"
It was almost hard to accept that it wasn't my school anymore. That I didn't roam these halls and I didn't have to worry about smelling like chlorine the whole day if I even walked through the pool wing. Only 5 years out of high school, I feel like it was a lifetime ago. Entering the high school was like enveloping myself in my favorite sweatshirt. It was comfortable and oddly reassuring.
I thoroughly enjoyed high school. I think I was one of the lucky few who really enjoyed it. I liked the teachers, the classes, and my friends. I avoided most of the drama of boys and backstabbing friends. I was friends with the good kids, many of our classmates probably thought we were the "goodie-to-shoes." In my group of friends, only 1 of us had our first boyfriend by the time we graduated in June 2006.
Instead of going to prom our junior year, we had a swimming party at my friend's house and her parents grilled for us. We took pictures and laughed and had a great time. We never did anything irrational and were always in the good graces of the administration and our teachers. We did our homework and most of us ended up in the top 25% of our class. By the time I graduated, I ranked like 60 out of 650. I still hang out with most of my friends from high school. We're even going to party on Saturday and we're still all level headed "good kids." We are all either college graduates or will be in the next 6 months.
It's funny... one of the teacher's at the honor's convocation said, "You may leave CHS but it never truly leaves you." And she's right. Whether you were lucky like me and loved high school or you were like many who hated it, you never do forget those 4 years. I have many wonderful memories of high school but my favorites are those sitting with my friends before school in the back hallway by the science department, either catching up on homework, studying or just chatting. That's when I formed those bonds that still stick with me today.
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