A Shared Past

[cleanaturalady]

I grew up in a  small town.  I moved to this small town the summer before third grade.  I was kind of used to moving and changing schools at that point, having changed schools four times in my short school career already.  This was quite a different move though.  We were told by my parents this would be our last move, our last school, so I really hoped I liked it.

The first day of school started out on a bad note for me because for whatever reason, my mom got the start time of school wrong and I was late.  I felt every eye in the classroom on me as I hesitantly entered Mrs. Weehunt's classroom that day.  Not a good feeling for a kid who would rather blend into the woodwork.  I was pretty shy back then and drawing attention to myself was the last thing on earth I wanted.  This did not bode well.

I wish I could say it all picked up after that and I went on to have the rosiest of rosy experiences there, but, as sometimes happens in real life, things went from bad to worse.  I found out quickly that this was a town steeped in tradition and nepotism.  If you were not a second or third generation resident, then you might as well have just stepped off the boat at Ellis Island.  You were a foreigner, an outsider, an interloper.  I felt fantastically isolated in a sea of people who all knew each other.

It probably didn't help that my self esteem was not the best to begin with.  Couple that with the fact that I never liked to adapt to the crowd (I wouldn't be caught dead doing something just because everyone is doing it), and you have a recipe for not fitting in.  Oh, I had friends alright, some really good ones, along the way, but I never did really fit the stereotype of small town life, I guess.

I graduated a year early from High School, mostly so I could get the heck out of there.  There was nothing holding me in that place.  I moved away from small town life, albeit not geographically far, far away in spirit, I guess you could say.  I never looked back and I never longed to move back to that kind of life or town.  I can truly say I didn't miss it at all.

Fast forward 25+ years, I have recently become reacquainted with some people I went to school with.  It has been wonderful to catch up with some of these people whom I have not seen in many, many years.  In getting to know these people again, a thought occurred to me - we have such a unique history together, one not shared by any other set of friends or relatives, really.

It is really quite interesting to examine these common threads that bind us all together.  There was the death of a classmate the summer after 5th grade, the Jr High principal whom we all made fun of, the smelly old building we moved out of in our 8th grade year.  Those are some of the things that we all remember experiencing together.  There are other things that we share too - the music of the era, the clothes; those sights, sounds and smells that bring you right back to a certain period in your life.

Yes, we meet people along the way that we share some nostalgia for the era with, but not like these people we directly grew up with.  These people are exactly our age, give or take a few months.  We grew up in precisely the same setting, share some of the same memories, yet had totally different experiences depending on which 'group' we were in.  It is fascinating to me to get reacquainted with these people and share the different perceptions we all have of the same childhood.

I still don't want to go back.  I am content to live in the sprawling suburbs an hour and a half drive from where I grew up.  It is close enough to go back and visit my parents when I want, but far enough away that I don't feel stifled by it.  I do like reminiscing with old classmate, however; it keeps the wheels of my mind turning.  Turning wheels of the mind is always a good thing.

© KDV 2009

[Rebeccalynn_dj]

Jul. 2, 2009 at 11:03 AM

Facebook is really good for catching up with your old friends and acquaintances.  I have enjoyed it for the same reason.

[poisson]

Jul. 3, 2009 at 6:16 AM

As I am responding to this, I am in the middle of preparing to go back "home" to my 20th high school reunion - Michael Jackson has just died & just watching the old footage has brought me back to those days like nothing else could.  I have always recognized the history that I had with those people - for better or worse - we share something that can never be replaced.