Last Saturday, I had a chance to meet up with some classmates that I have not seen for more than a decade. I can’t believe it’s been that long...come March it would have been 14 years since I graduated from high school. And yet, we just picked up where we left off as if we graduated in the spring of 2006.
Of course, there was the requisite reminiscing. Most of high school I would like to forget, but some of my most loyal friends have been high school (and grade school) classmates. Sometimes, I wonder why Iyay or Shawi still bother to put up with me after all these years. Many times I have been remiss in keeping touch...all those missed birthdays, weddings, baptisms, recitals. I’m trying to be better at it, not because they demand reciprocity on my part, but because they are a significant part of my life.
The girls I met up with (about 8 of us in NYC, can you believe that?) have all grown up to be bright and accomplished: professionals, wives, mothers. But, when the subject of the senior prom was brought up, everyone just went insane. It seems that someone was dating someone who had been someone else’s prom date...
I also realized how two-dimensional my life had been in high school. Most of them remembered me as the smartest girl in class, and nothing else. In all fairness, school was all I did, and I did it well. But my prom date was also one of the most popular guys from THAT exclusive private boys’ school (okay, we were just friends).
I believe that I have grown so much since then, and although I will still be remembered for my academic work more than anything else, I also wear other hats: economist, teacher, yogini, opera enthusiast, knitter, make-up guru, lola, tita, cook, karaoke freak...But that afternoon, I was just hanging out with the girls, talking and laughing, just like we used to do while doing cross-stitching in Miss Demetria’s class.
Of course, there was the requisite reminiscing. Most of high school I would like to forget, but some of my most loyal friends have been high school (and grade school) classmates. Sometimes, I wonder why Iyay or Shawi still bother to put up with me after all these years. Many times I have been remiss in keeping touch...all those missed birthdays, weddings, baptisms, recitals. I’m trying to be better at it, not because they demand reciprocity on my part, but because they are a significant part of my life.
The girls I met up with (about 8 of us in NYC, can you believe that?) have all grown up to be bright and accomplished: professionals, wives, mothers. But, when the subject of the senior prom was brought up, everyone just went insane. It seems that someone was dating someone who had been someone else’s prom date...
I also realized how two-dimensional my life had been in high school. Most of them remembered me as the smartest girl in class, and nothing else. In all fairness, school was all I did, and I did it well. But my prom date was also one of the most popular guys from THAT exclusive private boys’ school (okay, we were just friends).
I believe that I have grown so much since then, and although I will still be remembered for my academic work more than anything else, I also wear other hats: economist, teacher, yogini, opera enthusiast, knitter, make-up guru, lola, tita, cook, karaoke freak...But that afternoon, I was just hanging out with the girls, talking and laughing, just like we used to do while doing cross-stitching in Miss Demetria’s class.
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