As we go on...

I just watched this video of a mediocre pop song from the turn of the century. I've always been a sucker for a catchy chorus, and this song is no exception- it was one of those songs that I secretly loved to listen to back in fifth grade (the ones that were too gay to tell anyone I liked). But there has always been something in this song that really... resonated with me (or at least, more than say "hit me baby one more time" or "Happy boys and happy girls we'll be"). Something about that bittersweet "almost-happy tears" feeling felt so overpoweringly right, I never really questioned it.

Listening to it now, though, has made me realize a few things that are kind of embarrassing to admit were uncovered by a Vitamin C song. It's been well established that I am a terribly nostalgic person. I think it was because I spent so long at Pacific Crest and loved it so much that my first major change in life was overwhelmingly sudden and painful. I never learned how to deal with change, so I've never been able to cope well with it. I don't accept it and move on, I wrap myself in it like freshly laundered sheet. The extent of my nostalgia is sort of frightening. I think about plays I've done and want more than anything to go back and do them again. I remember fun things that happened in classes and regret everything I didn't do to preserve those moments. I curse myself again and again for habitually blocking out bad memories, because I know I have lost parts of my life forever. Which touches on the point of this- the inspiration for all this consideration- I have realized what makes me so nostalgic: I don't think about the past in terms of the experiences I have had, I think of the experiences that I will never get to experience again. I think of the past as something that's been lost, not something that I've lived.

I have told myself many times over the past year and 3 months how much I hate highschool. I have told a lot of people, in fact. I hated my grade, I hated a lot of my curriculum, I hated the social climate of highschool, I hated the standardization and teacher-turned-babysitters. In many ways, all of that is true. But there is something about the school experience, something about the drama, something about being with your friends (and people who are not so much your friends) so often for so long that is kind of magical. The shared hatred of bad teachers, the blessed reprieve of field trips, the bonding, the unbonding, the fights and the making-up, the ridiculous relationships, the embarrassing presentations, the easy As, the near-failures, those rare moments where you talk yourself up (or down) a grade- so much of it can be sort of amazing. Not Christmas-morning amazing, or 16th birthday amazing, but that kind of special amazing that isn't necessarily good. The sweet at the end of the bitter (bittersweet. Get it? Isn't that a clever play on words?). My first two years of highschool were full of that. I have more memories of that than I will ever have of running start, or anything besides probably The Bathhouse. I think in many ways I stole two years of that from myself. I got nervous about a few things and ducked out early. Oh, I've certainly learned far more at Central than I would have at Center. I've taken some amazing courses, and really gone a long ways towards figuring out what I want to do with my life. But seeing people at school today- giving Ellie and Chloe and Kayla big hugs, talking to Travis for the first time in far too long, even pounding Keynan (who I still regret never really bonding with), I realize the things I've missed out on. The things that, I am realizing, I sort of stole from myself. I didn't see people, I hardly kept in contact where I did at all, I left behind interests, I reverted to my old bad study habits... I went into a sort of stasis in regard to everything before seattle central. I didn't break anything off, I just pretended it didn't exist. And all of the Nostalgia of this is just starting to hit me. I am getting senioritus, and I have yet to turn in a college application. If I could go back, I would still make the choice to do running start. I think it was the right thing for my to do for my education and for my betterment as a human being. But I have just realized how fair of a trade it really is. I think it's time to reconnect.

Stupid song.