Invitation to the 5-Year Reunion

Has it already been almost 5 years since I left the sheltered cocoon of my high school and headed for the scary yet infinitely exciting world of university? Sometimes hard to believe but other times very natural.

I remember wanting to reinvent myself and shed all the labels I had at school. I was excited at the prospect of creating an image of myself that I wanted to project and not uphold the one I unintentionally let people believe at school.

And it worked. At uni, I became the person I've aways wanted to be. But it was my high school that taught me things that lead me to becoming the person I am today. And most of these life lessons were not in the classroom.

I learnt that sometimes your best is not good enough. However, it is always possible to do just a bit more than your best because you're always more capable than you think you are. Some walls that you can't break through, crumble when you persevere.

In social skills, I learnt that people are creatures of habit and even though they might be taken aback when you do something unexpected (like change which people you sit at lunch with), with time they will be used to it and think it's normal. It is also important to be strong within yourself and believe that you are a good person because sometimes other people won't. The hardest social lesson I learnt was that not everyone will like you, no matter how nice you are. The good thing is that their unexplainable dislike of you is usually due their own insecurities. People who hurt or make fun of others are the most insecure ones.

Another important lesson was that people in authority abuse their power, even if they are given an important job such as a teacher.

I clearly remember when I was in my first year of high school, my year's supervisor asked me to retrieve a basketball that rolled away. I did it, unquestioningly. When I handed it to her, she laughed and said to an older girl, "I knew I could make her do anything". I was so angry that I couldn't stop fantasising about writing an anonymous letter to her about how she ruined my life and make fun of her neck twitch. I wanted to hurt her.

I never wrote that letter because I didn't want to waste time on someone like that.

Going to an all girls school also made me see how much I liked boys. Maybe that's the main reason I'm so obsessed with them today. (Well, a specific one right now.)

Of course I also saw the nature of bitchiness, exclusion and competitiveness but I also took away the most precious lesson of all - true friends will be there for you, even 5 years after you stop seeing them every day in classrooms and breaks.

I used to joke with April that I wouldn't go to our high school reunion unless I was successful and I really didn't think I would be. But I'm happy to report that I will definitely be going, if only because of my nagging curiosity to see what's been happening with everyone else in my grade - marriages, kids, jobs life-changing events?

I can honestly say that I'm really looking forward to seeing all the people that made up the fabric of my life during my teenage years.