It's Only Teenage Wasteland...

This Saturday night is my high school twenty year reunion. It is hard to believe it's been that long. It seems like just last week I was sitting in my room listening to Metallica trying to perfect those speedy "gallops" on my guitar (which I never really did). These days I barely play. New interests and priorities keep me too busy to pick up my guitar. That's not to say I don't like to play it just means that I don't have as much free time these days. I'm sure this is the case for everyone from the Davidson Academy Class of 1992.

Part of going back to the reunion for me is to see everyone and who they are now. In high school we were all trying to figure out who we wanted to be (I wanted to be Dylan McKay). Who we all would become didn't happen for several more years. This is a universal thing. Every teenager thinks they know who they are but very few are even in the correct hemisphere from where they will end up. I was no exception. I thought I was going to be a rock star. Axl Rose wouldn't have anything on me once I got my time in the sun. Needless to say that didn't happen. Besides I only played music, David Chaffin was the musician in our class.

We all have that one friend whose acceptance we strive for. Chaffin was mine. He was everything I wasn't: self-confident, smart and an exceptional musician. All through high school I looked to him as an example. I didn't want to be David but I wanted be like him. And I wanted his approval above everyone else. Years later Chaffin and I would go down similar paths in our personal lives. At a time when I really needed support he reached out to me and helped me to get through a very dark place. I will always be grateful to him for that.

So here we are twenty years later. No longer are we bound by the labels we were assigned in high school. Labels like "preppie," "jock," "headbanger," and "alternative" have given way to adult, business owner and parent. We are no longer defined by the things we love but by the ones who love us. I have come to understand just how much I love the people I graduated with over the last few years. I talk to a few people on a regular basis now that I never really hung out with back then and some of my closest friends from that era have been M.I.A. for awhile. But all these years later I am reminded that we all shared time during those formative years and managed to still smile when it was all over.

High school is its own hell and we each have to figure out how to traverse the pitfalls of puberty at a time when the world seems to be both opening up to us and trying to hold us back at the same time. I would not go back and be a teenager again for all the money in the world. Anyone who thinks high school was the best years of their life has a warped sense of reality. As the ten year reunion grew closer I had mixed feelings about going. I really wanted to see everyone but I didn't know why I wanted to be seen so badly. Then a funny thing happened.

I really looked forward to the ten year reunion to show off who I had become. I wasn't a self-conscious and scared kid any longer. I was confident and self assured. I was in great shape. And most importantly I loved who I was. But in the months leading up to the reunion I started realizing that high school wasn't all bad and that most of the bad stuff that happened to me was self-inflicted. I wasn't confident enough in myself to be a part of the "in" crowd. No one held me back or gave me a hard time, I just didn't know that I was as cool as anyone was. This realization made me enjoy that night more than I would have if I had walked in to the room with a ten year old chip on my shoulder. It was a good night.

This time around I helped organize the reunion. My dad has gotten a real laugh out of that one. But I like the way I see high school now as opposed to the way I saw it then. There is no "us and them." In fact there never was. We were all trying to figure it out and as best as I can tell we have done a pretty damn good job. I look forward to seeing old friends and introducing my wife to the people who helped shape me. So here's to the Class of '92. You have always been my friend and I love you all.