Sweet Yet Sour

The Bad Break-Up

Friday, July 9th, 2010 | The Daily Special

For me, high school is like an ex-boyfriend with whom you’ve had a bad break-up.  You think you’re over him, that you’ve moved on and forgotten him entirely.  Until one day, years later, you see him one day in the grocery store.  You attempt to hide from him, darting between aisles and displays, only to be caught by surprise behind, ironically, the Hostess shelves.  You exchange greetings, suffer through some embarrassing pauses in conversation, and finally it’s over.

You turn to leave, relieved, only to think moments later that he will probably go home, call all of his friends and say, “Whoa! She got fat!”  By the time you get to the check-out line your posture is slumped and by the time you get to your car you jump in so no one sees you crying.  None of the wonderful things you have done with your life since you saw him last were reflected in the conversation, and you almost want to run back and say, “But wait! I’ve accomplished so much – I’m a totally different person now!”

You were a different person then and he was an awful boyfriend.  You wonder sometimes where your self-esteem was at all – it seemed to be missing entirely.  He made you feel ugly, unloved, stupid, and worst of all, alone.  You said and did things that were out of character, until you completely lost yourself in the mess.  When the break-up came, you wondered, “Was it something I said or did?  Is this all my fault?”

I’ve never been one of those people who could keep a friendship going with an ex-boyfriend anyway.  The last time I tried it was, well, high school.  I tried to stay friends with my senior year boyfriend after we broke-up.  It was going pretty well until Graduation Day when he informed me that he and my best friend had been secretly dating since Prom.  I remember smiling and telling them how happy I was for them, while suppressing nausea and hoping that the day would end soon and that I would never see either of them again.

I never felt I belonged anywhere in high school, or with anyone.  And so when it was over, I ran, far, far away – trying to forget how awful it was – how it made me feel about myself.  Almost immediately I lost contact those few people I thought of as my friends in high school, the result of lack of trying on my part, and perhaps lack of interest on theirs – I really don’t know.  And I really, truly, thought I had moved on, that the person that I was now did not care about the past and the pain that was there.

But then, of course, there is Facebook.  A childhood friend of mine convinced me join, told me it was a great place to find old friends.  And it is, there are so many people that I have wondered how they were and what they were doing that I have found on Facebook.  But I have also found, much to my surprise, that I am still not over high school.  I still feel like I don’t belong with these people, that I am yet again the girl in the corner of the gym waiting for someone to ask me to dance.

A high school friend, with whom I, of course, have lost contact with, once told me that in high school I was “invisible”.  And I can’t remember whether that was purposeful on my part or not – but there I was, or wasn’t, really.  I wrote poetry then, acted in plays, wrote great papers and got good grades, but never belonged.  Are there people who feel that they belonged in high school?  That this was the greatest time of their life? I am most certainly not one of them.

It wasn’t all bad – I loved my physics class, my history and French teachers.  I learned a lot, took some great classes and had friends that I loved very much.

Apparently there was a great party at my house once in high school.  But sadly I wasn’t there, so I don’t have all of the details.  A friend of mine took the opportunity of being asked to house-sit while I went to visit my sister and my parents went to the Sand Dunes for Thanksgiving, to use our house for a party.  I arrived home, hours before my parents were due to come home as well, to find the house a wreck.  Corn flakes were sprinkled all over the entire house, trash cans were filled with beer bottles and strangely, every single one of my 64 crayons were broken in half.  I cleaned it all, frantically, and made it look to my parents as if nothing had ever happened.  If I had felt like an outsider before, the fact that I had not been at a raucous party at my house only made it worse.  I remember feeling as if I were a piece of paper that had folded in upon itself in an attempt to disappear entirely.

And so now, when I see that those people from high school are still friends, that they still get together, play together, etc. for some reason I still am jealous.   I still wonder, “Why doesn’t anyone invite me?” You see what Facebook has done to me? I’m wallowing in self-pity again! Just like high school!  I think I’m hoping that writing this will give me a little catharsis, perhaps help me to leave all of this behind.

You were a horrible boyfriend high school. I often hated myself just as much as I hated you.  I want you to know that I am, except for when I make the mistake of reading my Facebook home page, a different person.  A happier, more enlightened person.  I will never get the apology from you that I think I deserve, the attention I craved and you will never know what I am like now.  I have indeed accomplished many things since last we saw each other, I am loved and have others to love in return.  I turned my back on you and ran, and in the process regained myself, but every once in a while you haunt me.  Perhaps someday (maybe when I finally stop going on Facebook!) I’ll be able to let you stay in the past.

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