High school reunion reflections

I just attended my high school reunion. I won't say how many years, but it has been a very long time. While I bear some physical resemblance to the girl I was at 18, almost everything else about me has changed. I still read and watch sports, but who I really am has grown so much I hardly recognize her when I compare her to that younger girl. Before the reunion, I attended a get-together with some friends. We did some catching up and reflecting. Most agreed they were grateful to have changed and grown so much in the intervening years. Below is the group that got together before the reunion. Half couldn't make it later, half could.

High school is often a time for trying to determine who you are and what you want out of life. It took me almost another 10 years to decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. I waited an additional few years before getting an advanced degree. In the meantime, I got a Bachelor's Degree, attended law school and dropped out when I realized I didn't want to be a lawyer, had a child, home schooled that child between different jobs, worked a variety of careers in law, music, dance and technology, and finally selected one for the longer term. That longer term job was in information technology. Since it is a constantly changing field, I needed to continue to learn and grow to remain relevant. I have enjoyed that challenge.

Outside of work, I also continued to change. I remain primarily an introvert-that being defined as someone who finds it drains energy to be around a lot of people. I love people, they just tend to sap my energy when I'm around a group of them. One on one is easier, but still draining. I've always been this way but didn't understand it when I was younger. Now that I know, I can better manage my energy and moods to make accommodation for those time that will be more difficult. Of course, my husband is an extrovert-one who gains energy from being around people. We view large groups very differently.

In high school, I found small talk difficult. It is still not as easy for me as for my husband, but I am much better able to talk to both friends and strangers. Some of that has come from the examples I see in the different books I read. Particularly as I have become interested in Jane Austen fan fiction, the different portrayals of the characters, and the stories I myself have written, have helped me find ways to better articulate my interest in others. I never knew how to do that all those years ago.

My different experiences with family, with church, with performing, and with work have all helped me develop into a different person. I have more empathy, more sympathy, more compassion, more patience, and more understanding than I did at 18. I am grateful that I have had the opportunity to grow, in spite of the fact that the growth comes as a result of living through difficult experiences. Just as a muscle requires resistance to become stronger, so do our souls. If life were always easy, we would not grow. Very few choose hard times because they will teach them something. Most of us prefer the easier times. Yet the refinement that comes from the hard times is what creates the person we need to become.  

 For most of us, high schools starts us down that path to our eventual destination. A few start much younger, but for the rest of us, as we pull away from our parents, we go through the testing and rebellion that help us determine how we want to move forward. I think that is why these years see so much gang recruitment. Gangs make it easy to define ourselves. Going it alone is much harder as we have to consciously make decisions about the direction we will head. Even a decision to leave it up to the group is a decision about direction.

I am grateful for the growing the teen years force on us. I am grateful I had friends that were making good choices. As a parent, I am grateful my daughter had such friends as well. Interactions with peers help us determine what does and does not work for us. They help us to define ourselves as independent beings. We can then either recover from those years or continue to move forward, depending on our experiences. That is a choice we make daily all our lives.