This week, two friends from high school came into the city. I haven't hung out with them since 1998, and I wasn't sure why. We went out to eat Monday night after they arrived, and I quickly realized why--my faction of friends were the drinkers.
True to my adored Malcolm Gladwell, we had a connector--Damien--who linked the two groups together. I had just become friends with him in the spring of 1998, and at first I was drawn to Group A (where my visiting friends fall) and only moved over to Group B when I discovered my soon-to-be-ex-boyf-turned-best-friend Poof there, and the more dangerous-yet-appealing white trash Daley clan.
That's when my drinking started, with bottles of Zima and Sour Apple Pucker, and I began to realize who I am--and who I'm not. When I was sitting with the two from Group A on Monday the other night, I realized that it's not just the drinking that separates us but an entire lifestyle.
Don't get me wrong--I don't feel superior and I still enjoy their company. I'm certainly not going to deny them when they try to be my friend on Myspace. But I'm not likely to have marathon phone conversations with them, either, like I do *still* with Poof. I'll actually be fine if I don' t see them for another eight years, actually.
It seems like all we had in common WAS high school. All my life, I've worried about fitting in. But this time, I'm happy I don't. Their world (and the world of Merrill Senior High) is foreign to me and always has been. And not like the way New York or Holland were foreign when I first moved here (and there). I simply can't understand the rules and customs of their life: what's its like to be divorced from your high school sweetheart, or run your own business. What it's like to be them.
I'm glad to feel different for nothing else than just being myself. My roommate commented on Tuesday, "What do you DO with straight-edge people, anyway?"
I admitted that I had no idea and then took contentment in that someone else mirrored the ideas that occur in my wine-and-beer swilling, big-city brain.
Maybe I'm not so foreign to myself after all.
I wrote this on Tuesday and revised it on Friday. This was one of those instances where I had to ask the Starbucks staff for a pen because I HAD to write. Maybe I am destined to be an author after all.......
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3 comments:
I certainly do appreciate the good cheese here in the middle of the country! lol But if I were single & childless I'd KILL to be right where you are right now!
Thanks for stopping by! :)
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