Does anybody else struggle with memories? I’m not talking about whether or not you are getting old and can’t remember. I’m talking about real versus tainted memories. The difference between what actually happened and what you remember to have happened. Do you find the older you get the more you view the past through rose-colored glasses?

I know I am getting older. My mirror tells me. My driver’s license tells me. The frequency in which I am to report to my doctor tells me. And now there is one more reminder…my upcoming 30-year reunion notifications on Facebook. I can’t possibly be this old, can I? I don’t FEEL old. I don’t ACT old (or so I have been told). By some people’s standards I don’t even LOOK old. But, the birth certificate never lies. And so now, let me bring this back around to my original question. Does anyone struggle with memories? Or am I the only one?

Earlier today I reconnected with a high school girlfriend whom I haven’t seen in over thirty years. We began talking as if the last thirty years was but a couple months. It was exhilarating, to say the least. To chat with someone and within a few short minutes be caught up on the details that bog us down on a day-to-day basis. So, as anyone would naturally do, I got out my yearbooks and starting finding pictures and mementos of my high school stint. Who else could I get caught up with? I must admit I got a little excited about the prospect because I have such fond memories of high school.

Would you like to know what I discovered? I’m a whole lot older than I believed myself to be. I must be! Because there is no way I can have such fond memories and have very little, if any, connection (outside of a few Facebook posts) with anyone in my graduating class! So what is the deal? And the interesting thing is that I could probably run into any number of them and either a.) not remember their name/recognize them; b.) start talking to them like we were in high school all over again; or c.) wonder what happened to us that we never connected through all the years. Or maybe a combination of a few.

But it really doesn’t matter because my memory is tainted! Don’t you see? I remember a very different scenario that what was actually true. I remember all of the good stuff. I remember the senior trip we took to King‘s Island….oh, wait…I didn’t go. Oops. Well, I remember prom, the dress I wore and shopped for hours for, the dancing, the music…..oh, wait….that never happened either for me. Well, I do remember the close friends I made. They even wrote in my yearbook that we would keep in touch after graduation. Those friends were the best! Oh….wait….that didn’t happen either. I remember all the fun I had in the classes joking around with everyone, telling jokes and laughing. That happened, right? Well, yes, but I was always on the “wrong” side of the room. I clearly recall senior skip day…but I was too prudish to actually skip. I was too ignorant of what “fun” was to enjoy a lot of the activities my senior year. I didn’t know a THING about friendships, my future, relationships, “workings” of school extra-curricular activities, and, most of all, myself. I mean, seriously, who really know, at the age of seventeen and eighteen about ANY of those things?

So here I sit at the age of….ahem….40-ish…..and wonder…”Am I the only one that doesn’t remember high school through rose-colored glasses?” I mean seriously….I know that there are some of you who have kept in contact with certain people all through the years. I know that some of you married your high school sweethearts and it has lasted all this time. I’m certain that many of you have never moved from the area from which you graduated and therefore it has been inevitable that you run across people all the time that you knew in high school. Some of you have even decided to stay in the school system and teach in the very school you went to. And I know that still others have children who are now attending that school and are participating in the same activities that you did.

But I can’t help but think that the majority of us have moved on to our separate paths, growing old, enjoying life for the most part, and looking at high school and senior year through our tainted old-people glasses that only allow us to remember the good. Because isn’t that what we are supposed to do?

　

　

This is going to be the first in a series of posts that I will publish that have to do with the time leading up to my reunion, which, sadly, I will not be able to attend.