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madrobinsI just got an invitation to my 40th high school reunion. Which means I must be 57. **checks. yes, 57. damn.**
I'm not going to the reunion--we will have been in Sheffield three weeks earlier for Dad's memorial. If we were more local I think I might, though. I hated moving to Sheffield when we did (1966...from Greenwich Village to rural Massachusetts), but I got a lot of good out of the experience. After having been a social zero for the ten years from nursery school through eighth grade (although that was beginning o-so-slightly to change when we moved) I realized I had a chance to reinvent myself. The first year I was at that school I was, I suspect, a real pill; many of the things I had been taught to value at my NYC school I had to downplay; bluntly, I was kind of a snob. On the other hand, I discovered that I wasn't stupid (seriously--at my NYC school I had believed I was a little slow and pathetic). I learned to be less of a snob. I developed a circle of friends, a few of whom I'm still in touch with today. Over the four years of high school I tried out a bunch of activities I would never have gotten near at my NYC school (Future Teachers of America! the Italian club! Field hockey!).
It was a weird time to be in Sheffield, and I was unhappy at having moved out of New York for the entire four years I lived there. But (to my credit) I didn't let missing New York get in the way of having a pretty good time in high school. Looking back, I'm rather stunned that I had that much good sense. And I so much appreciate the friends and teachers who took a chance on my socially awkward, kinda snobby self.
I'm not going to the reunion--we will have been in Sheffield three weeks earlier for Dad's memorial. If we were more local I think I might, though. I hated moving to Sheffield when we did (1966...from Greenwich Village to rural Massachusetts), but I got a lot of good out of the experience. After having been a social zero for the ten years from nursery school through eighth grade (although that was beginning o-so-slightly to change when we moved) I realized I had a chance to reinvent myself. The first year I was at that school I was, I suspect, a real pill; many of the things I had been taught to value at my NYC school I had to downplay; bluntly, I was kind of a snob. On the other hand, I discovered that I wasn't stupid (seriously--at my NYC school I had believed I was a little slow and pathetic). I learned to be less of a snob. I developed a circle of friends, a few of whom I'm still in touch with today. Over the four years of high school I tried out a bunch of activities I would never have gotten near at my NYC school (Future Teachers of America! the Italian club! Field hockey!).
It was a weird time to be in Sheffield, and I was unhappy at having moved out of New York for the entire four years I lived there. But (to my credit) I didn't let missing New York get in the way of having a pretty good time in high school. Looking back, I'm rather stunned that I had that much good sense. And I so much appreciate the friends and teachers who took a chance on my socially awkward, kinda snobby self.