Lessons from Youth Revisted

When I graduated from high school, I walked out the door and for close to 20 years, never looked back. I seemed in some respects to be running from it; wanting desperately to start anew. I'm not particularly sure why. I grew up in the same house, went to the same school, graduated with a large number of people who had known me since I looked like this:

Whatever the reason, I avoided many of the people I had come of age with like the plague. I didn't attend a single class reunion. I didn't want to revisit it. I wanted to move on.

Interestingly enough, outside of a year stint in State College, I have never lived out of the area, living most of my adult life in Kennett Square. I worked with a handful of classmates in the restaurant business, but for the most part, only kept in touch with two or three people from my childhood. That is, until now.

Yes - it started with Facebook. And believe it or not, I was a hesitant participant initially. I got on there at an urging of a friend, who had discovered it prior to all of the privacy features (although nothing really is private, is it) that it has now. We could join, lurk around on people from our past pages and seemingly never be detected. I did this, very occasionally for close to a year before I extended or accepted a single friendship. But slowly, a network developed and all of a sudden I was in touch with people I hadn't seen in 18 years. And I was kind of having fun with it.

So I went to a small reunion of a handful of loosely connected 1988 graduates a few months after my 20th reunion. It was a mixed bag. I was surprised by some, disappointed in others but entertained nonetheless. And so we went back Facebook and our lives.

About 6 months later, I lost my brother which impacted me deeply. I reevaluated absolutely every aspect of my life and made some fundamental changes in my world view. I softened on many parts of my past. I let go of other parts. I moved on with my life in a completely different way. I started to value my friendships in a way I honestly don't think I ever had. I realized that just like my family, the people who had come and gone throughout my life had had just a big of an influence as anything on what molded me into who I had become. And I'm thankful for that.

So, much to my surprise, I found myself reaching out to people from my past. I found new friends from my past. Previously peripheral people, meaning I had known them, but not really known them. They have become my friends. And I'm so grateful for that. I really am.

So, I put together a list of a somewhat loosely connected group of people from my past and suggested we get together. Which we did. And it was fun. We are not these people anymore:

We are adults, entering middle age. Living middle aged lives. Dealing with middle aged problems. But we all have one thing in common. Our youth. We were all molded by a common experience of growing up in a middle class open acreage of  Southern Chester County. Some of us started in Chadds Ford, some in Unionville, some came along later. But there we were 30 plus years later, realizing how much we knew about each other by virtue of having walked the same halls of a now ridiculously overpriced, oversized school.

And I have a few observations I'd like to point out that came to the surface last night:

1. Most of us look the same. Those grade school photos are just mini versions of our adult selves. Except you Drew. You used to look like this...

2. And not to pick on you Drew, but the bottom line is this; you will always be Andy to us.

3. It's a wonder most of us are alive after the shit we did in our teens and twenties. It's absolutely frightening that we will now have to try to teach our children what we couldn't teach ourselves until our frontal lobes had fully developed (which is after age 25 and is responsible for impulse control).

4. Most of us did the majority of our growing in our 30's. And for alot of us, our 30's sucked. It was nice to hear I was not alone on that one.

5. We spent no time on religion or politics. Instead we talked about Lymes Disease and Arthritis. And the possibility that we all really have Lymes and don't know it .

6. We figured out that all of us really never belonged to a clique with any sort of conviction. And Unionville had alot of them. Alot of us couldn't hold to tightly to any single group because at the end of the day, we wanted to go out and smoke during 10:10 break and after lunch. You needed to be comfortable hanging with the heathens to do that. So we were.

7. And speaking of heathens, according to Lauren, there were several sub groups. You had your Dead Head heathens, your Metal Head heathens and your good old regular heathens. And it seems incredibly ridiculous that any of that even came into play all of those years ago.

8. And further on the heathen subject, apparently that term is Unionville specific. In most other parts of the country, there are referred to as "Heshers". Except for in South Jersey, where my friend Wendy went to school. There, they were referred to as "Devils". And we thought we were bad.

9. I realized that I really like people. I know that sounds crazy but I am notoriously cynical. But I have found myself over the past few years, excited by the successes of those from my childhood. I want the best for the people around me. And I hope they want that for me too.

10. Last, I am happy to have reconnected with my youth. So many parts of it were hard for me.I think the hardest part of coming of age is pretending to know who you are when you have absolutely no clue. By the time you hit high school, you are a child in a grown up body, thinking you have it all figured out. It's so great to look back and see it for all it was. And laugh.