My senior year of high school, we used to ditch during lunch and drive to the beach. It was always beautiful. We’d blast music all the way and stop at Starbucks for iced coffee. It felt like pure freedom.
Every now and then, I revisit these pleasant memories and think fondly on high school days. It’s amazing how positive everything seems in retrospect. In the actual moment, nothing felt right. Like many teenagers, I never felt that I fit. I agonized over my outfits every morning. I suffered from extreme insecurities and the plaguing notion that I just wasn’t desirable. The boys never found me attractive. I was never the one they wanted — a typical, self-deprecating, teenager train-of-thought.
My freshman year of college, I cried myself to sleep every night of the first week. I began to realize that, if I thought high school was bad, I had no idea what was coming to me in college. I wondered if I would ever be happy. Even during my second quarter, when I got my job at the coffeehouse and subsequently made a wide variety of friends whose company I actually enjoyed, I was still followed by my insecurities, by the belief that I just wasn’t wanted, romantically or platonically.
Sometime, after therapy, after medication, after nutrition-counseling, I started to find my sense of balance. I started to feel okay. The balance wavered, particularly during my junior year abroad in Chile, and then, again, after graduation. I’ve come to believe that it’s pretty natural to feel unsettled and a bit insecure when you’re in a new environment, under new circumstances.
Yet, years later, I moved to a small town in which the only person I knew was my own mother — not someone I could rely on for social activities. I never felt uncomfortable here. I never felt like I had lost my footing. Even during my debaucheries and fairly self-destructive “adventures,” I felt balanced. I felt like I was me even when I wasn’t necessarily acting like me.
And now, everything in the past has a beautiful ray of light on it. Every horrible feeling has dissolved. Every discomfort and period of depression seems to have melted into some hidden place in the back of my mind, where I can hardly even feel its presence. I know that I was once depressed. I know that I once thought more about food and what I ate than anything else. I know that I once preferred to hole up in my house, in comfortable clothes, and watch a movie. I know that I once chose to drink cheap red wine from Trader Joe’s by myself on the weekends and clean my kitchen with music blasting. I know that, in high school, I never “fit.” But it’s as if you can’t think about those things any more. It’s as if, at some point in your life, you have to digest it and then, to a certain extent, you have to let it all go.
So here I am, reminiscing in my own mind about the many days of senior year that we ditched class and took PCH to Malibu for iced coffee.
I said, in a recent post, “Like every thing else I do in my life, eventually, in some sense, I find a way to miss it.” This is the proof. This is the evidence. These are [some of] the memories I currently idolize and rewrite in my mind.
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I crave balance
I’m the same way. Lately, I’ve been missing the little things from high school…and I miss my best friend and the memories…
I don’t miss the person I was because I was so insecure but in a way, I was also confident. The last 5 years have been incredibly fast moving and such a rollercoaster for me.
I have no idea where I’ll be 5 years from now and how I’ll feel going into my HS reunion.
I graduated from high school in June 2003 and not once have I ever thought fondly of those experiences as a whole or ever craved returning to those moments. Instead I’m the girl who is grateful that experience is in the past and would like for it to remain.
Don’t get me wrong, there’s some great memories from those years. But the overall picture is rather … dismal. I suppose my college years made up for that though, by far.
It does, however, show a lot of self progression if you’re able to look at those years in a more positive light. Every time you write about your past, it’s evident you’ve come quite far since, but to be honest (and lame), I think I would’ve been your friend regardless if you were around.
I think people definitely get to the point where the pain in their bad memories seems to hurt less than their current miseries. Otherwise no one would go to their class reunions.
No beach access is one of the downfalls of growing up in a landlocked state like Pennsylvania.
This is such a wonderful post. I always find it interesting that experiences and periods during our life tend to be much more positive in retrospect. I’m glad you’ve found a sense of balance and happiness.
This is why I should have gone to high school in Sunny Cali and not rainy Wash
I did the same things my first 2 years of college. I hated the way I felt and preferred to be alone in my misery than pretend to enjoy being social. I still prefer to be alone much more than go to parties all the time, but now I surround myself with people I feel completely comfortable with so it’s easy to stay comfortable with myself.
The past has a way of teaching us many things about the present, and the future. I’m glad you found a sense of well-being from your most insecure era. Now you can begin building on this positive foundation!
It’s shocking, that’s what this is.
Have you ever read a book, or a certain chapter in that book…a phrase perhaps and felt like you knew the character[s] involved? Maybe like you’d been there–where ever there is–with them? Experienced it too?
Or maybe you feel like this person knows you all too well, and are perhaps writing about you in a way that doesn’t upset you–but opens your eyes and your heart and make you feel like your being has been scribed in this ink and pressed between those pages.
Or just a song maybe, that has all the right words–it could have been you who wrote it?
This is how I feel when I read alot of your posts Tristan, It’s so incredibly comforting that I come here hoping that you have something else I can use as a mold to fit myself into.
I remember high school and never going to any classes what so ever in the last two years–12th and 13th grade. Even though I wasn’t doing this alone, and there was a group of us, I just never felt like I belong anywhere or with anyone. I went to an all girls school to boys were distant, and to me that is how they wanted to stay n my case.
My body image was and still probably is forever at the forefront of my mind.
I think because we are in different stages of life….my last two years of high school are less than a year ago. And so, I am still stuck in that roller coaster bubble.
BUT, at least I know…at least I feel confident that this is not a permanent thing. I’ll get on one day.
I’m glad your journey has reached a stage where you can inspire people like myself to not give up hope.
It’s as if, at some point in your life, you have to digest it and then, to a certain extent, you have to let it all go.
it’s amazing how one day you can be so ‘in it.’ and you have no idea how you’ll get out, and then once you do, you have no idea how you were in it. maybe realizing that you can be in it, and get out of it, will eventually make it easier to get out of whatever it is you are in.
(wow, i think that’s a question on the SAT…. and i think the answer is y=2)
It’s so difficult to find a sense of balance, never mind a sense of belonging. And it’s good to remember when you do find that balance, that it took a long time to get it and that you have to work to keep it.
I’m always grateful for my little moments when I’m not balanced – and then it passes – because I remember when I couldn’t do anything to keep a hold of it.
I know that I once preferred to hole up in my house, in comfortable clothes, and watch a movie. I know that I once chose to drink cheap red wine from Trader Joe’s by myself on the weekends and clean my kitchen with music blasting.
Haha, that sounds like me now! Is that bad?
I’m so glad you’ve found the balance you seek. And I feel the same way about high school, interestingly enough.
This is something I’m guilty of as well.
I look back at my life at certain points and think, “I was on top of the world, then” but really? My present is fucking fantastic. It’s a constant challenge to remind myself of that.
I am much more balanced now too, which is weird to say considering I’ve faced more emotional issues in the last few years than ever before. But, I feel like a much stronger and saner person than I did as an undergrad, and I can take on the bigger things now.
You’re making me think about my high school self. Maybe I should write about that sometime.
I was just talking to a close friend about how when we look back at how we used to feel, it’s hard to imagine feeling that way now. Even when I have really, really bad days, it’s different than it was when I was in high school and the first few years of college. My memories have definitely lost the anger and sadness that the more negative ones used to carry. Oh, high school…
This post also made me want to go back to California. I would have spent my days on the beach too :)
i remember those trips to the beach too. and leaving the parking lot while everyone else was coming in. it was our first taste of freedom. of not having to ask, but just DOING.
its funny. i remember feeling like you were never quite happy. but i always saw you as fitting in. in fact, i marveled over how well you fit in @ school. how you had our group, but also your newspaper friends. and how even after the drama erupted senior year, you were able to stay even, and friends with those whom i could not.
its so great to see you there and aware of it. a few years ago (or maybe more then a few who can remember anymore), we talked about food & you wished to be where i was one day. well youre there girlfriend!
i think your reminiscence brings up a good point. sometimes, often, we forget to enjoy the present. how sad that we can only enjoy the present in the past. whenever i talk about high school, i too am happy and joyful. but was i then? doubtfullly!!
love you t!
come visit me soon! and lets drive to the beach with the music blasting.
or is it we can only enjoy the past in the present? or is it both?
I think the mind does that to ease past pain. It’s just so much nicer to remember the great times.
I always wished in high school that I lived in the type of town that allowed for quick access to a beach.
*sigh*
I love that you have found balance in your life. Some people never achieve that. Ironically, my post today is about balance, too.
I love that you have found balance in your life. Some people never achieve that. Ironically, my post today is about balance, too.
I adore this post. It feels very connected to some of my past memories.
Sometimes I look back at the hardest times or most stressful decisions of my life, and laugh, because for all the drama and fear they held then, things just seem as they should now. Who’d have thunk?