What would you do if you woke up at 6 am, turned off your alarm and saw your favorite plaid Eddie Bauer shirt on the floor next to your American Eagle overalls and your Gap Dream? What would you do if you woke up and found yourself slobbering on a desk in Mr. Muth's classroom? What would you do if you found yourself back at 100 Selma Av???
Do you feel that once you left high school, you left it and its antics or do you find similarities of yourself circa September 1992 - May 1996? Please don't shudder in preparation of overwhelming self-analysis! Go into the light!
I think, on some small level, I've always known how subjective my life was, as well as my interests. I wasn't the most beautiful, intelligent or popular, but I got around. I met lots of unique people and forged a bond with my classmates. I love my classmates! I am all about '96. Outsiders (non-Statesmen), think that Webster is like Pleasantville and I can see the similarities on the surface, but you have to dig deeper than that. Most of the time what the Outsiders don't realize is that while we had the best years we could, we learned at the tail end of our senior year just what was important. Sometimes when bad things happen, people straighten up and do better for a little while at loving each other. I felt like we made a point to do that for the rest of our lives. Still do.
I think it's funny how some people hate high school. I wouldn't say that I hated it, but I definitely wouldn't want to go back. On occasion, I would worry if I had the right clothes, the right hair, the right shoes (you can never have too many shoes, ever), why didn't more guys want to date me--more importantly, why didn't I want to date them? Did I hang out with the right people? That last question renders a definite no. Some people I went to high school with were so cool that I slept on them and didn't become friends with them until I graduated (insert Annie B and some other stellar 96ers). But in high school, especially my third and fourth years, I slowly came to the realization that it didn't matter if I had the fashion or the fame of high school. I would still be myself without it. That part of me hasn't changed since then. If anything, it's gotten worse.
I did enjoy high school, but it paled in comparison to college--the great white way. I did branch out and meet even more wonderfully diverse people. But after 2.5 years at the University of Missouri, I transferred home and finished my Nursing Degrees (I have two) at Jewish College of Nursing at Washington University Med. I spent most of the first semester depressed and missing my friends from Missouri. But once I lifted the fog, I made some friends that I still have to this day. Nursing School was never about popularity. It was about who was the smartest. Who tried to kill their patients....that kind of thing. It was about watching "Passions" on NBC after class, or taking a nap on the roof, amidst Children's helicopter flying this close to us, or finally learning how to sleep in class with your eyes open.
While I see some changes in myself, I still feel that deep down I'm still just Stacey. Queen of all things ordinary and mundane. I'm still the same Stacey that believed that all that she learned up to May 24, 1996 (April 29, 1996; who are we kidding?) would lay the foundation for what she'd need to make it to the next place in her life. The same Stacey that says she'll do one thing and then turns around and does the opposite. More importantly, the same Stacey that's nice only when she has to be.
LOVE IT. I told my mom just last week that I wouldn't go back to high school if you paid me a million dollars. It's true. She said I was being dramatic and I replied, "and?" Having had a tough time figuring out who I was, making friends and pleasing my parents, I escaped to a little town of about 30,000 college students called Lawrence, Kansas. It was there that I made friends (most with which I am still incredibly close), discovered myself and, most importantly, pissed off my parents with a nose ring, large monthly credit card bills and not one, but TWO senior years. I discovered upon graduation that I had always been this person: a little rebellious, financially irresponsible and unapologetic about my brazen personality and my outspoken nature. I was just too afraid of not fitting in to have been myself earlier on. Having read this, I know I wasn't alone! Thank God we turned out this fabulous!
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