Searching for Our Past

I keep getting these emails from websites that claim they'll be able to connect me to every person I ever wanted to find from high school. I find it entertaining thatthese places will try to entice me with emails claiming that people have been searching for me and don't I want to know who they are? But it brings me to an interesting issue- what is this obsession we have with our past?

Most of my dreams are very vivid and a lot involve characters I went to school with, lived with, worked with, or had vague contacts with through other people. I remember very clearly a lot of things from school and I'm wondering why anyone would want to relive them. For the most part my school experience was good. I had plenty of friends, made good grades and was okay enough at sports to at least make the team. But there were a lot of things that were terrible- getting in trouble with my parents, having to sneak out to see my high school boyfriend, fights with girlfriends that led to us not speaking for weeks or even months, failing grades (particularly in math), SATs, college visits and applications. It all led to who I am today, and I guess I could say that what doesn't kill you makes you stronger but I went to my 5 year reunion and was simply amazed at how little we had changed. I thought that college would make my class a more tolerant, better group overall but what I found was that every single one of the girls was exactly the same. The snobs were snobby, the nice girls were nice, and one girl had finally lost her virginity after claiming that she would wait until she was thirty or married. For the most part I was amazed to find that most of hte girls were even LIVING in the same place they had during high school. They had no interest in new experiences whatsoever, in living somewhere that would force them to actually think about who they had become.

I never wanted to be one of those women who are constantly fighting with their high school selves. Like the "mean girls" in Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion, i was proud of them when they finally realized that they were living the life they wanted to live as opposed to the life that had been assigned them at 18. So many of my "friends" are doing just that, living the life that was picked out for them. Like David Sedaris said, "No matter how successful I am, I am still considered most likely to burn your house down". he went through the same struggles in his family, dealing with what would come of being assigned a place in life practically before you're aware of your own reality and can remember your name.

I guess that's why I find it amazing that there are so many people out there who are looking for each other. Are you trying to remember why you are who you are? Are you trying to remember what it was like to have been chosen Homecoming Queen your senior year? It never fails to amaze me the way people handle themselves when it comes to high school. We become high schoolers again. On MySpace people are constantly 'touching base' with people they knew even vaguely during school. We are happyto hear that the school bully ended up in prison, or that the beauty queen was in a car accident that destroyed her face. Sure we may not admit it and we can pretend all we want, b ut that is the truth, isn't it? We are never above being human.

Maybe I'll become one of those people, out of my mind with the need to find out about the livese of others, to compare myself with them and see who fared better. Or maybe I''ll just believe that we are living the life we make for ourselves, with or without those experiences and people.