High School: Round 2

What's painful about a past is usually nothing to do with what actually happened then. There were things you did, things you wish you'd done, things you really really wish you hadn't done. But any decisive action you took, or heart breaking decision you made then has disappeared into the ether never to be seen again. The hard part is figuring out how to bring it all forward, how to meld all of that junk and debris from before with the palpably vibrant present day -- while you try to prevent it all from exploding.

Memories are often so potent they can overpower your vision of a situation at hand. In my case, that means this entire post-work pre-school period since March has been a strange re-telling of my senior year in high school. (It hasn't helped to watch a show about the lavish, hyper-aggrandized high school experience on the Upper East Side of New York. Or that they just aired their big prom episode tonight). I hated and loved my senior year in high school -- and college at that. Nothing went how I wanted it. I didn't get to go to the school I wanted, my boyfriend was suddenly my ex-boyfriend before the pinnacle of our relationship could be reached by attending prom together, and I basically almost flunked out of school. Every piece of the puzzle I'd perfected and excruciatingly carved for myself, kept falling to the floor and dispersing into innumerable molecules of shittiness. I promised myself I would never come back to San Francisco for more than a short stint at my parents' house, and even further, I would never allow it to suck me into its sick, twisted plot where I would love this place and want to bring my eventual family here.

Flash forward to college graduation, and suddenly I'm relegated to a few months on a couch. I am quickly sensing that all of my worst fears are going to be played out in the HD version of California Real Life: This Sucks and have decided that in protest I will do absolutely nothing but review and re-live (but only in my head) the year I experienced prior to it. This, of course, will ensure that nothing in my actual reality can play itself out. Six months later, I find that this brings only greater heartache, a fat dollop of delusion, and a seriously bad case of "holy-crap-I-have-no-money-since-I-just-spent-everything-I-have-and-I-live-with-my-parents"-itis.

Flash forward again. Suddenly I find myself here for a year, moving into an apartment in San Francisco proper with two high school friends, and falling into the trappings of a relationship that supposedly came with a self-imposed expiration date. (Foiled yet again, brain.) Another year later, I'm just home from a whirlwind Eurotrip, planning for the last type of Grad School I expected to attend but whole-heartedly want to partake in, and moving to a city of curiosity which I've been ambivalent about since I left college. Somehow, while I tried my damnedest to disentangle myself from a city I was terrified of, I managed to unfold the exact existence I'd hoped for years ago. All out of a situation which, at the time, seemed abysmally unfavorable.

There's no picture perfect prom this time, there's no high school boyfriend to ask me in just the right way, or a beautiful backlit stairway to walk down. Not that those existed the first time around. In fact, none of them did -- maybe the perfect dress, but everything else was light years away. Which was almost the reason I was angry in the first place. However, there's also none of the unfortunate realities of the time that left me bitter, heartbroken and determined to leave behind anything remotely related in the first place. Or if there were, I think somewhere along the way I forgave them, accepted my responsibility there, and decided to watch my life actually happen the way it was going to -- not the way I wanted it to.

Which means that suddenly the memories don't matter as much, and the everyday now matters a lot more. All there is, is a wonderful family, these amazing irreplaceable friends, and an incredible unexpected love. Though this may be one of the happiest times of my life, I can feel that it's also the end of a wonderful (but difficult) era. But even so, I couldn't be more grateful for the people and the place that has taught me so much.

Did it really only happen because I opened myself to it? Or was it all bound to happen in the first place? Even more, did it happen because I expected absolutely nothing, so have been caught off guard?

Maybe it totally pays to have nothing expected, to smash all pre-conceptions and just fly totally blind. And maybe it pays to read more books, see more art, go to more parties, and listen to more music. Cause even if you don't want to, you're still trying to take it all in.