The class of 2021 is poised to pounce on the world. The school year is over, lockers have been emptied and grade twelve students are closing the door on their high school experience – it’s an ending and a new dawn for the lot of them. It’s exciting and terrifying and I feel all of that with them – even after all these years.
If the world was in a place of ceremonies and celebrations 2021 would mark the class of 1971’s fiftieth high school reunion. Fifty. I graduated high school half a century ago and even with that buffer of time I still cringe when I think about it.
I walked out of the hallowed halls of high school as a girl who’d never been kissed. I’d spent my high school years masking insecurities with a facade of humor, I was everybody’s friend and no one’s. I was a misfit, not just at school but in my life – I hated being me. Time has not softened the blow of those memories.
I had no plans, I’d done my time and my high school diploma was still a semester away. My transcripts were incomplete – I was leaving school lacking not only confidence but credentials. I was relieved my academic ordeal was over and terrified of the future as I closed that door.
In hindsight I think life is something that happens to kids – choices are thrust upon them in the midst of discovering ‘who’ they’re going to be – the ‘what’ they’re going to be is secondary in the chaos of growing up. I had no clue on either count as I left my school years behind.
Of all the things in my life that I’d like to do again you couldn’t pay me enough to add high school to the list. I hope the kids of the class of 2021 feel differently but my guess is some of them don’t.
I’ve always wondered if the cool kids make an easier transition, if popularity is a get-out-of-jail-free card? Are the beautiful people more confident? Does everyone feign courage as they leave the familiar behind? I also wonder why after half a century I still ponder these questions, why I pick the scab off my insecurities every June and remember things I would sooner forget. Does everyone do this too?
I walked by a ‘Congratulations Grad’ sign on someone’s front lawn the other morning. By the time Penny and I took our evening walk the sign was gone and I began to remember and wonder again.
Comments (2)
I was stunned to read your blog just now. I also graduated in 1971, and I had no idea it was 50 years!! GASP, GASP! Feels like yesterday and I remember all of it, the good and the bad, the fun and the shocking 😀
I wasn’t a popular kid either. I also felt I followed a different drummer (and still do). Your third para is me, too.
I also felt terrified and excited and had NO idea what I could do, wanted to do, was able to do. The biggest thing for me was not going into debt. All my siblings went into debt going to university, and as I didn’t know what I wanted to do, I thought that was a foolish idea. LOL. I finally went to university to get a degree when I was 52 and that showed me that I probably should have gone to uni and embraced debt. I might have found my passion/s at a much earlier age.
Still, none of our experiences are wasted.
Some of the best in my classes failed miserably in life, including the beautiful ones. Some of the worst got even worse, some committed suicide, and some of the likely and the unlikely soared. I didn’t end up where I dreamed I would, but it isn’t over yet… I saw a huge line of students waiting in the sun this morning for graduation ceremonies to begin, and all I felt was excitement for them. I like that. Reaching into the unknown. Being fearless. Believing that everything will work out no matter what happens. These are things that I didn’t have/feel/know when I graduated, but I have them now. Hopefully a lot of graduates this year will have this fearlessness having gone through some pretty difficult times en masse. A greater appreciation perhaps, of what “the world” means, as we can so easily reach each other in ways we never knew before. I have optimism for the future, even for us 50 and 60-year (my sister) celebrants this year! Cheers.
Nancy – thank you for your comments.
Don’t you wish you knew then what you know now – I would have been a completely different person – I might have gone to university, I would have been braver for sure. Alas, “too old too soon, too smart too late”.
I am also optimistic about the future – there is a real depth to the kids of today – they see and feel the world in a way that is inclusive… yes, there is hope for the future.