High School

I joined a group for my graduating high school class yesterday. At least...a group is what that thing used to be called on facebook.
I look at pictures of people and I think...how was that ever part of my life? Who was that girl? Do I even know her? Was that part of my life ever important?
I think of all the times I played blend-in. Going Tiger Salamander and hiding in the dirt. Never mind I was a little green and splotchy. I hoped it didn't show too much.
All this time, feeling like I was a minor character, a supporting role. An alto, fading into the background music of my life. Thinking I was worth little less than nothing, because that what people thought I was. I hardly met one person I really connected with, on almost every level. You know who you are, the one. I wish we talked more, because you were the only person I truly didn't want to ever lose contact with. In hindsight.
Initially, I wanted to save every piece, salvage the experience like chunks of broken china.
When I was a small child, breaking things used to depress me. In my head, I thought, I ruined the only one I had. I am never going to get that back. Parts of my soul shattered in front of me, shards of happiness falling asunder.
I look at people from high school...and I can't relate. Even one little bit. At least, not with the people I used to relate to. In the long shadows cast by college, those memories seem...frail. Flimsy. Doomed at inception. I see people with husbands and children and temple weddings. And I know I made the right decision to leave when I did. If I wasn't blending in before, now I was a scarlet macaw. Or at least, it felt like that in comparison to my Tiger Salamander self. The Scarlet Macaw part of me bristles and shrieks at how much those people did not see in me. How much I had to offer. I nurse the pain, and mourn the loss of opportunity at knowing others, hiding in their cocoon like I was. If only I had been braver, I think. If only I had found myself sooner.
I could have been something.
I have to tell myself, look at you now! Never in a million years would you have dyed your hair, drank wine, pierced your ear, dangerously fallen in love, stayed up until dawn with someone, cracked a joke at someone else, publicly embarrassed yourself because you thought it was funny, worn a tank top, worn a miniskirt, commanded the attention and laughter of a bunch of 4th graders, dated a jock, trained for a triathlon, or become a leader. My high school self would have shriveled into a pile of goopy self-esteem dribbles.
And yet here I am.
Different in so many ways, able to love and be loved, ready to take on Graduate school.
And guess what...I'm pretty now too!