Yearbooks

It has been 16 years since I graduated from high school and yet it remains the period of my life about which I have the most regrets. I wish I had known more about the college admissions process. If only I could have seen my own beauty instead of constantly looking for it to be reflected back at me from others. Why did I focus so much on my faults instead of my strengths? How did I get away with ditching school so often and still graduating?

I recently got on Facebook - aka the land of people from your past - and searched my high school for people that I would want to be in touch with. For long lost friends with whom it would be great to rekindle friendships. I didn't see that many in the list for my class, so I pulled out my senior yearbook. And then my sophomore. And then my junior high yearbooks. It was then that I realized that what I regret most about my high school years was that I didn't nurture more friendships. Moreover, I got so caught in drama with my (two years older) "boyfriend" that I began losing touch with most of my junior high and high school friends long before I even left high school. Somewhere between entering high school and leaving it, I had managed to lose sight of who I really was as a person.

In ninth grade, I was very involved in school. Student council, scholarship clubs, activities. My ninth grade yearbook is crammed with inside jokes from friends and acquaintances across different social groups. Then, in the middle of my sophomore year, I was in a severe car accident. I broke my TMJ joint in my jaw, broke several teeth, and had to have my mouth wired shut for a few months. I tried to keep a cheerful attitude, but the truth was that it shattered my fragile high school ego. Just when I was beginning to think of myself as pretty, the car accident took that away. Instead of feeling comfortable with a large group of people, I began to feel more moody and self-conscious and stuck to a small group of friends. When I began dating an older friend in my junior year, I let my other relationships slip away. My grades also slipped as I began to ditch school to go hang out with my friends who had already graduated. I was a good student, when present, and so my GPA stayed bouyant enough to not get noticed, but the truth was that I had pretty much lost interest in school by the middle of my junior year.

How many of us wish we knew then what we know now? I feel so grateful for where I am in my life now, but thinking about high school makes me realize how fragile we are during this period in our lives. Faced with life-altering decisions (like drugs, sex, alcohol, college) when we have such a desire to prove our independence and yet such a need for guidance and support. I didn't have that guidance and made so many awful decisions that trampled my spirit and led me down dark paths away from the person I wanted to be.

As I look at those faces in the yearbooks, I wonder what has happened to so many of them. I also think about my own daughter going off to high school in less years than I think I am ready for. I want so desperately for her to understand that the choices she makes will influence the person she will become. To enable her to see her own beauty and value her strengths. To be the guiding hand that I so needed when I was in high school. I am afraid of sharing some of my regrets with her, but my hope is that, by doing so, I can help her high school years be filled with joys instead of regrets.