So my parents brought up an interesting point today…
Try as I might, I’ve been “kicked out” of the high school crowd. They go to movies together, they go to concerts, they celebrate their last day… and I’m not invited to any of it.
This shouldn’t surprise me. However, for some reason, it does.
I mean, I’ve been gone for two years. I do keep in touch with many of these people (and some of my closest friends are from the class of ’06), but there’s just something different.
Meh, so big deal. When I went to visit school, I heard a lot of people tell me that I’ve grown up… that I look and act more older… more mature. Actually, there’s a part of me that can see that too. But dammit, I don’t want that. I still want to fit in to the crowd that I spent 2 years of my life with (wow, was it that short?).
So why does it bother me? Social groups change all the time. I no longer belong to the high school group. Technically, I should have been out of it from when I graduated. But I resisted. The year after I graduated, I must have visited the school something like 8 or 9 times. I would have loved to sit in on classes. I wanted to spend as much time there as possible. I went to the annual year-end party. I was still able to walk into any classroom and be recognised by most if not all the students there. And you know what? That was important to me… and for some reason, it still is.
So I guess I just feel really left out. I’ve visited three times this past school year. This past one, in particular, was especially unenjoyable. I don’t know everyone anymore… There are now 2 years of students that I never met, never knew, but it feels like much more. Even the school itself… its spirit is gone… the sense of community is gone. There is no longer “The Academy,” there are just “The McClintock students who happen to congregate together sometimes.” It’s become another clique in a school that sure as hell doesn’t need more cliques.
There are inside jokes I don’t get, faces I don’t know and don’t get introduced to… I’m truly an outsider now.
And it really shouldn’t bother me, but it does.
Am I really so childish that I want to cling desperately to the last threads of my youth? Am I really so selfish that I’m unwilling to give that up? Am I really so immature that I’d do whatever it took to be accepted again? To feel like a part of it again?
And the weird thing is, I don’t regret graduating early and leaving everyone. But somehow, I feel like I should still be able to be a part of the group after I’m gone. Pretty stupid of me.
So as I grow closer to my college friends, I drift apart from high school ones. I’ve been home 5 days. I have seen exactly one person in a context other than a school visit. I have spent (what I would consider) quality time with only that one person. She wasn’t even from my high school; she was a friend I’ve had since before 4th grade.
I am only home for another ~2 weeks.
I don’t want to lose my high school friends. Many of them helped me through some of the worst times in my life last year, and continue to be there for me this year when needed. But I feel like I am. I feel unwanted, alienated.
This entry, like most of my rants, has no real point, so I will conclude it with something entirely unrelated-lyrics from That’s Where It Is (Carrie Underwood).
In the circles I’ve been running, I’ve covered many miles. I could search forever for what’s right before my eyes.
Just when I thought I’d found it, it was nothing like I’d planned. When I wrapped my heart around it, it slipped right through my hands.
Here with you I feel it. Close my eyes and see it.
In a midnight talk, in a morning kiss, when I’m in your arms that’s where it is.
When we’re tangled up and can’t resist, when we feel that rush that’s where it is.
That’s where it is.
That does suck. But at least if you’re actually getting closer to college friends, you’re not doing too badly? Change happens, but at least it doesn’t have to be change for the worse. And also you have friends to lose; better to have loved and lost [etc].
Oddly going back to high school I feel like I belong more now than I did then, but that’s more because I was always out of place while there. Makes me regret not having friends for the last 18 years.
Well I don’t know you well at all, but as far as the Academy goes, there may be some solace in that you don’t have the pain of experiencing the degeneration of it all first hand. Many of the seniors who have left were the ones who really believed in the old Academy. There are a few of us sophomores such as myself who believe in it, and there are some freshmen who do as well. But many of us are regarded as far too idealistic for the harsh reality that the PPA no longer has any chance of really existing. Be glad that you don’t have to share that pain as much. And as the person above has said, this is a chance to get closer to your college friends while you can.
That’s not quite fair.
I experienced more than my fair share of the degredation, and I also really believed in the old Academy. I just wanted out of there ASAP when I realized how things were going… which is the entire reason I graduated a year early.
I don’t have to share the pain that much? Ask anyone in my real graduating class (’05) about whether or not we “shared the pain.”
No offense, but you don’t remember what the Academy was like. You couldn’t have. The real Academy died after our freshman year.
True, I don’t remember. What I do know of was what I saw when I came and shadowed before my freshman year. I would not be surprised to learn things were even more different when you were there, from what I saw. But by the same token, there was little sense that the Academy was gone. Especially this year, I became fully aware of the state of things, and it all seemed to lose shape. Of course you would know more of the Academy than myself, but there is little sense in bickering over it. The point is, whatever is left of it is drying up, and people such as myself as the few people left who have half a mind to do anything about it–that is, what little we may be able to do.