warning: long and sentimental post ahead

the other day, i watched the sisterhood of the traveling pants. nostalgia moved me to get out my diary from junior high/high school and my senior yearbook. the diary was embarrassing, to say the least. i didn't go into much detail in it, but all the "i love so-and-so" (which seemed to change weekly) reminded me of how we think we know what love feels like, but really we don't at that age. the lack of detail was probably my fear of the book being discovered by a parental unit. these days, i don't think i would censor a written diary. if someone reads it and gets offended, they shouldn't have been reading it in the first place and i was trying to be nice by not telling them what a giant offensive turdburger they are!

i was kind of surprised at how little i remembered about high school. i went to a very small school - my graduating class was made up of 90 people. as i looked through the photographs, some names or faces would be familiar and i would have a gentle stirring of feelings. my "nemesis," if you will, had the same first and middle name as me. we were arch rivals from 3rd grade all the way through junior college, when i stole her boyfriend and then she stole him back and then we both dumped him because he was really in love with himself...and his guitar. i remember the last time i saw her. we embraced and accepted one another as sisters before we parted ways.

then there were my 2 "serious" boyfriends, one of whom was not in the yearbook because he graduated a year before me. now, he was in love with his car. i was just some arm candy to complete the package. sometimes, i fantasize about a chance meeting with him where i tell him that what he did to me really sucked and sent me down the road of mistrust. maybe he'd care. maybe not.

the second guy was 2 years younger than me. i was a senior dating a sophomore. i didn't really care what other people thought, but most who decided to opine did approve. i was his first love, but i never fell in love with him. he was fun, cute and "got the job done" if you know what i mean. the day i broke up with him, he cried. he genuinely did not want to see me exit his life. but i was in college and he was a high school junior. eventually, he forgave me, and even invited the captain and me to his wedding. they had their first child before we had punkin. i haven't spoken to him in years, but his vulnerability meant so much to me after i had been taken advantage of by car-jerk. i wish i could have loved him...at least for a little while.

my high school girlfriends are long gone from my life. my best friend going into 9th grade turned into a rebel without a clue, so we parted ways until junior college, when we decided to room together. i can honestly say that those 2 years were the best of my life. classes were a breeze, so we basically became vampires. we stayed up all night with our friends, went to early classes, came home to nap until about 5 or 6pm, did homework and then repeated the cycle. it was freedom at its best. this was the time when i went through guitar-jerk and another jerk that doesn't even merit a mention. it was also the time that i became friends with the captain. friendship is always a great precursor to romance.

the other significant girl in my life during high school was and still is somewhat of an enigma. she wasn't attractive on the outside, but was beautiful on the inside. i was sort of her "role model" for a while. she contacted me not too long ago and we met for lunch a couple of times, but it just wasn't the same. i didn't "get" her anymore. that made me feel sad for what we had lost.

i guess if i had to pinpoint a feeling after going through all of those pictures of classmates and teachers, it would be a sense of loss. not that i feel an overwhelming need for them to be in my life now...it's just that i don't understand where the years went and how we are just passing thoughts to one another now.