NOSTALGIA

These days, I am most often in touch with college friends. Most probably because the bonds we formed in those years are fresher than the ones I had when I was in high school. Being with any of them is very rare, so when I got to be with two high school classmates whose intelligence and guts I admired back then and until now, I went home feeling strange, in a good way.

At 16, we three had left our hometown to study in our chosen universities. Two of us went to the same one but had different majors and circles of friends. The third one was in a different university not too far from the two of us, but far enough to not see each other for more than once a year. It’s been eight years since those years in high school (do the math and you’ll figure out how old I am), and we had not sat down together like that since our late nights for the school paper.

We hit the ground running with, “Whatever happened to…?” It was both amazing and alarming how, in the last eight years, people have managed to get married, have children and get separated. In those same years, many have moved forward in their careers and have begun to make names for themselves.

Inevitably, the updates were entwined with reviving memories. Honestly, bringing those memories back isn’t one of my favourite past times. You know how people reminisce and end up asking themselves, “What were you thinking?” I lose count of the times I ask myself that when high school is brought up.

In my head, that period has been relegated to the four years that I had to go through to get to college. Not out of bitterness. I've already found those things ridiculous and plain funny. It’s more of me not knowing what I get out of discussing those days. I mostly just get realisations about how high school is a place where a few hundred people’s raging hormones, teenage angst and pre-adolescent temperament were crammed into one place. The best recipe for disaster.

But when that night with my friends was over, somehow, I felt like it was just right to be going through those days again.

First, because we were together in high school, that time in human lives that spawned movies like Mean Girls, Breakfast Club and Cruel Intentions. High school was four years of fun, drama, and controversy. They were somewhat witness to mine, and vice versa.

The limit to high school cringe-worthy experiences. (GIF Source: survivingcollege.com)

Second, and more importantly, timing seemed to be good. Eight years have elapsed since graduation. We were out of high school long enough to be able to look at things that happened then from a good distance, allowing me to see those years as formative and not take everything too personally anymore. Many of the wounds have healed, and time has given us new experiences that eclipsed what we went through in high school, both the good and the bad. Enough time has passed for us to be able to say, in what I hope is a mature voice, that there were things I could have done differently, but they happened and are part of my personal history — for better or for worse.

Yet we were not too far along life that there is not much to look forward to except to wait for our lives to be snuffed out of us. We are smack in the middle of our twenties. There is so much going on for us now, and so much is still in store for us.

Sitting there and hearing how batchmates’ and our own lives are turning out got me thinking that movies about high school reunions do not truly capture the different faces of success; neither do they fully show how the paths to happy and good lives vary so much. People have moved abroad to see the world, found love in the strangest places, and have pursued careers that we did not expect. As for us three, one was returning to our hometown, where family and a family business await. The other was settling into married life while building a career. I am also trying to establish a career, but as a single woman.

Things now are starkly different from what we had then. Our high school selves were primarily preoccupied about school, surviving the teasing and stereotypes, having friends, and “the future.” Now, we have or are trying to have careers, family duties, and are able to legitimately weigh in on issues heatedly discussed in the world. For one, my married friend and I were particularly engrossed by Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In and “having it all” as women and men. We were already living in “the future” that we were thinking of in high school. Many times that night, I was pleasantly surprised and filled with pride for friends and classmates.

Though I cringed many times at the memories we unearthed, it was quite like having a fresh breath of air. It was a kind of conversation that I’d love to have versions of at certain points in my life.

It was another one of those times when I don’t feel so bad about growing older. For one, it got me out of high school. But the best part is, I get to have conversations like this.

It was a trip down memory lane but not one that dwells on the past, focusing on reviving it, pining for it, or regretting the things in it. Rather, a trip that makes you train your eyes on the future by arming you with the knowledge that you’ve gone through enough to earn you the right to have a little swag in your step, and also reminds you that you have a long way to go. Looking back and looking ahead mixed nicely together, making the whole "living life" concept more rewarding and exciting.