High School memories...

Went out with a friend from high school a couple nights ago.  At one point during the night, school came up and she asked, "What was high school like for you?".  I suppose it would seem like an innocent enough and easy to answer question for most, but considering who I was in that time it was a hard question for me.

This was the same girl who at my five year reunion informed me that some people had been talking about the fact that someone had actually had a kid with me and just how astonished they were at that fact.  Seriously? I know right?  And I actually still keep going back to the reunions too... glutton for punishment I suppose.

Honestly, for me, high school was a living hell.  I was the kid who didn't go out for sports.  I read in my spare time.  I loved art class and drawing and painting.  I was overweight and by default, class clown.  Not by choice as much as a defense mechanism.  I had bullies and upperclassmen who apparently had no better hobby than to give me hell on a daily basis. I took martial arts instead of football and hung out with the other less than popular people.  And all in all in retrospect I guess by being myself instead of being like everyone else I made a target of myself.

I would not wish my best day in high school on my worst enemy.  Its funny to me now to meet up with some of the people that I went to high school with and see how they have gotten fat, dropped out of college, live in our hometown still or whatever.  They are still trying to cling to the cliques and popularity they spent so much time cultivating and are squeezing every drop they can out of their legacies. 

If I could go back, would I change anything? Actually probably not.  I might be more outgoing and talk to the people I wish I had said something to then and taken the risk of rejection but otherwise everything else would stay the same.  I don't think I would be who I am today without the torture I went through those years, and it has all made me the better for it.