A dear friend of mine today, (as we stood in the parking lot of Villa Bakery) made note that she was glad to see how well all of us grew up. She noticed that the cliques kind of dried up and that we all are cool years later.
I really couldn't help but agree. I thought about that all the way home. At our November 7th mini-reunion it was really great, and everyone was talking together like old friends and in some cases, like family.
I know that adult cliques and exclusivity exist. That usually boils down to the prestige people carry and the money they make (socioeconomics). But that's different.
We were talking about High School. In high school there were different types, gone unlabeled (here) because actually, the classic "Jock" "Princess" "nerd" "burnout" theories didn't necessarily apply to most specific individuals. There were simply the people "to be seen with", the people no one notices, and the ones to NOT be seen with.
If you thought back to which category you fell under in high school, did you boil it down to your own personality type? Did some of it boil down to your upbringing or parental pressure, maybe? A lot of it may have been interest-based, and so forth. But what the bottom line was, it brought on a sort of division as we became older kids.
As toddler-type kids, we played together..not being aware of any differences. Then, with every new taste of life's interesting features we learned how to SEE differences, we learned how to fit in somewhere right around grade 6. A few years later we acclimated ourselves to an image or niche, and became the jock, burn,nerd, princess, etc.
Another thing I learned about was that for some people, their high school years were either hell or happiness, based on where you got pigeon holed. MANY people you may not see at a class reunion because they remembered how cruel everyone was to them. The flip side was that there are people that were really popular, and had no fear of turning up somewhere with these people again.
Some people look back at their high-school years with indifference and distance, because they figure that was a long time ago, they are over it, and that they prefer to live in the today. While some (like myself) look back at my school years, especially my classmates with a high degree of fondness because I know I spent a lot of my formative years with a lot of these people. I see them as almost family, because they knew me when we were practically babies, and we know each other now: well into our 40's. I have memories of all of them. Many of them I outright love for those memories.
The thing is...popularity...cliques....27 years later, it all comes to mean nothing. Life did bring its balance: It humbled many of the popular, and boosted a lot of self-esteems for others; and in the end, what we are is a compilation of people with life experience. Some similar stories, some different. No one's better. No one's a loser, and "winner" is really relative. We know that riches don't always come down to a high grade point, money, the house and job we have...but the love we gave and received. Our families. Our babies first cries. The way our husbands or wives looked on the alter. The thoughts and emotions we will take with us til our very last days. Our lives make us rich, not our images, and not our things. When you are 46, you really realize that (in the end) popularity is an illusion..kind of like a hologram.
I was so happy on November 7th, because every damn person that was there was an awesome, friendly, and interesting person. They all carry with them the stories and lives that made them the characters they are now. They now have so much more from living than popularity could ever give them, and at last: we are all rich.
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