Is the Pink Paint Still There?

A few weeks ago, I received an email from a former high school classmate, notifying me that this year marks the fiftieth anniversary of our graduation and that plans were already underway for a reunion in the fall. Beyond the shock that five decades had passed, my next reaction was, why would I go?

My fondest memory of high school involves the yearbook staff working late at night, a runaway skateboard crashing into our freshly made banners spread out across the hallway floor and buckets of bright pink paint splattering across the tan bricks of the walls, soaking into the white mortar. We laughed hysterically for a while and then somehow managed to remove the most noticeable of the evidence.

Other than band, the yearbook staff was the one place during my four years of high school where I felt I belonged, where my opinions mattered, and my creativity was welcomed. There was an important shared goal, a team-spirited bond, and a sense of camaraderie that I desperately needed. We came together despite our varied backgrounds, capabilities, and cliques.

My mother was an English teacher in the same high school, and that alone brought several issues to the forefront. For one, even if I were inclined to walk on the wild side, I did not dare, because people who live in small towns see and know everything, and they cannot be trusted to keep their mouths shut. We were not allowed to leave campus even for lunch, but one day I threw caution to the wind and joined the same yearbook staff at the only Mexican restaurant in town. When we returned to the campus, I could see my mother’s tall shape standing in the entryway, arms folded, waiting for me.

My mother’s excellence as a teacher elicited admiration from some of her colleagues and envy from others, which of course created more issues for me. One of the most envious was a revered math teacher who told Mother it was unfortunate that I was “academically strong only in the weaker subjects” (English, history, art, music). During class, most of her instruction was directed toward the mathematically gifted students who sat in the front row, because they spoke her language. I did not understand anything she said. I ended up with a C in the class only because I copied answers from my friend’s test paper (a fellow weaker-subject expert), who had copied her answers from the Einstein next to her. Yes, I cheated.

“Deep friendships that survive the test of time and the institutions with which they are affiliated are priceless.“

High school was not fun or carefree or memorable. I was the tallest girl in the entire school and taller than most of the boys, with red hair and an introverted personality—someone who took everything way too seriously and internalized way too much. If I could go back to 1967 and give my fourteen-year-old self a piece of advice, it would be this: Just chill out, be yourself, and let the rest of the crap roll off you.

I did not realize what true friendship was until I was in college and found myself joining a sorority—a local sorority not affiliated with the national Greek system—where one of the core values involved “individuality.” We were a bunch of girls somewhat randomly thrown together. Most of us did not remotely resemble the stereotypical sorority girl. We had a blast, and we forged lifelong friendships based on acceptance of our differences, loyalty to each other, and a whole bunch of singing…

Through social media, I have realized that some of the people I recall being the closest to in high school I have nothing in common with now. Some of the people I knew only in passing I have discovered are far more interesting than I ever realized. And a few of those I could never have been friends with in my high school years have left me wondering what all the fuss was about.

I have learned that life has a way of rationalizing quite a bit and separating what really matters from what definitely does not. Deep friendships that survive the test of time and the institutions with which they are affiliated are priceless. That’s what matters.

The conclusion of my soul-searching journey generated from that one simple heads-up email about a fiftieth class reunion is this: Nothing that happened in my high school days matters… anymore. I have long since passed the point where the worst memories still sting. And even the few good memories from those days are tarnished and faded.

There is nothing I wish to relive or memorialize or celebrate. And there are no former high school classmates with whom I have had lifelong friendships that survived all these decades. While I may have a fondness for certain individuals, it is because of the people they have become through these many years, not because of any connection to our shared high school experience.

I can’t imagine my eighteen-year-old self even considering the possibility I would feel this way fifty years later, that I would not have any pull or longing to reengage. But the simple truth is that this is not my tribe. I did not belong then, and I do not belong now.

I could not have known or understood back in the day that I was destined to follow a far less traveled road than many of my fellow graduates, one that would take me far away from where I started but, in the end, to exactly where I needed to be.

If I feel the slightest bit of curiosity, however, about anything from all those years ago, it’s for the remnants of that bright pink paint in the mortar from our hallway skateboarding escapade that one special night, so long ago. I wonder if it’s still there. I wonder if it ever finally faded away…