I started out writing very long, introspective ramble about how I'm glad I'm not a teenager any more, but I was frankly boring even myself, so instead I'm going to say this; I'm so fucking glad I'm not seventeen. High school was crap and anyone who tells you they're the best days of your life is (to quote Tim Minchin) either lying or mentally ill. I mean, who would want to go back to puppy fat and social awkwardness (no acne for me, though - the one thing about my adolescence that prevented it from being a total, unmitigated disaster)? Only the developmentally arrested and emotionally stunted.
The reason for me unleashing this diatribe is that this week has been surprisingly high school focused.
I started Spanish lessons again on Monday, and the classes are held in my old school. Since I left I hadn’t walked through those gates again, or had any desire to do so, and I was a little bit disappointed at my reaction to being back there. I thought it would feel strange, that I would have an intense emotional reaction, but I felt nothing outside of mild amusement that my class was being held in what was once my English classroom. I suppose I’m just too much of a different person, and I don't relate to my seventeen year old self at all. The last time I walked out of that building I was an awkward, deeply unhappy girl. Ten years later my life is far from perfect, but I’m happy now in a way that I never could have imagined back then.
The other thing is that someone I was friends with in high school, but who I had lost contact with, popped up on Facebook, and though I know that is the shallowest of ways to connect with someone it was still a bit of a shock. In one way or another, I have lost touch with everyone I went to school with. Some of that is just due to the fact that people's live change and they drift apart. Some of it is due to the Great Boyfriend Stealing Scandal (GBFSS) of 2003, which you don't need to know about in any detail. Suffice it to say I did not steal anyone's boyfriend or play a part in any breakups, though I did not behave as well as I could have after the fact. My version of events is that I fucked up, but that it was not done with malice, and that certain other parties acted like nut jobs. But that's a story for another day, possibly after I've had three martinis and no dinner, which were the circumstances under which I last told that epic tale of miscommunication and stupidity. That aside, the fact that this person has chosen to contact me has thrown me into a bit of a tizz. I'm not sure that I'm ready to talk to her, or to anyone else involved in the GBFSS, or that I ever will be. I feel like that bridge is well and truly burned, and the ashes swept up and used to make soap with which I have washed my hands of their friendship. Chances are pretty good that no one else will contact me, though I've already started to make a mental list of who I could allow myself to see again, and who I hope never to encounter in this or any other lifetime. I suppose the short story is that I am disproportionately concerned by a Facebook friend request.
And that's that. Nothing much else to report. I'll let you know if I have any other vague concerns or worries about inconsequential happenings on social networking sites.
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