Rising Out of The Dust

In the past month I have reconnected with a lot of old friends rising from the dust of former lives - from middle school/junior high, high school, college and several former employers. It's alternately terribly exciting and dreadfully awful.

Why is it that nearly TWO DECADES after I first stepped foot into middle school, whenever I talk to someone from those four (mostly horrible) years I am sucked back into feeling like the awkward, Kmart-clothed, goofy, pegged-and-acid-washed-pants persona of my early adolescence? Seriously. Does one ever just grow up and forget that they were not the lone dork on the planet at that point - that 99.9% of the population could also lay claim to that title in some shape or form?

(As a side note, It should be said that I pity anyone who had to spend four years in middle school/junior high. Through a quirk of re-aligning schools and new construction, there were three classes of people who had to endure four years of acne- and hormone-fueled trauma just to get on with real life. Combine it with the year we all spent in high school together and it's rather amazing we didn't end up in either one giant lovefest for all of the obsessive-compulsive, algebra-sluffing, label-obsessing time we spent together).

Perhaps my anxiety-ridden descent into madness each time I hear from a friend who knew me during that time period is because I went to junior high the same number of years as elementary school (if you don't count half-day Kindergarten), giving me more than ample time to develop my special brand of obsessive dorkiness. No one should spend the same number of years trapped in early adolescence as they did having lunch recess.

Maybe it is because I still firmly believe that the shirt my mom made me wear on the first day of 6th grade was THE UGLIEST SHIRT EVER and that it did indeed scar me for life.

Maybe it is because I still remember the multiple pairs of carefully coordinated slouch socks in a dozen different colors, the LA Gear high tops (conveniently the only pair of shoes in a 50-mile radius that fit) or the fact that I tripped and fell running track in PE twice a year, without fail, four years in a row (on a cinder track - I have the scars to prove it).

Maybe it is remembering the four years of braces, the lack of a single athletic bone in my body (small town athletes = royalty) or the fact that I was one of the tallest people on the planet three of those four years (ironically, once I was okay with being tall, I quit growing - and have been the same height for roughly 16 years).

Whatever it was, I've nearly gone comatose over the last month any time I've reconnected with someone who knew me between the ages of 11 and 14. Each time, I pray I won't hear the dreaded phrase, "You haven't changed at all!"