Get Up Tomorrow and Keep Trying

I've recently joined facebook. Obviously, i can't stop writing about it. Tonight, though, i searched out people I went to high school with. I don't know why. But, ironically, there weren't that many people i knew.

"Who were you?" i found myself wondering over and over. Faces of couples and individuals who have no relevance to my life, none what so ever. Honestly, there were faces i never spoke a word to. My high school wasn't that big, but it wasn't small either, but more than size it was me. I was quiet, shy, and self-conscious and if i wasn't one of those i was generally awkward. Never popular, always present. My town was a foot ball town so i played soccer. In the spring it was baseball and i sucked at baseball. In the summer we just did our best to stay cool. In the winter, well, you wrestled or played basket ball so i did drama and choir. I read a lot of books. A lot of books and i took French. I was the hidden classmate outside the insular core of a small group of friends that deviated very, very little.

I still have friends from high school. Mostly guys i skied with. We bonded on the mountain, throwing ourselves down the hill for a common cause. A couple of us learned to mt. bike together, we fished and even did a bit of hunting. We are still connected, casually and friendly and we can talk after six months as though no more than a week has passed. For these friends--from that time in my life--i am deeply grateful. But i was struck by the close friends i once had whom i haven't spoken too in 10 years. These were the faces that have cut me closest to home.

I was tempted to message a couple of them via facebook but realized quickly that my messages would come off as they were, emotional response at seeing their faces after so long. Emotional response fueled with beer and tempered with time. A couple of those faces were so close to me. So intertwined in friendship and life and they have smiling faces on photographs that are the small covering of their lives and stories. Honestly i am afraid to pull the coverings away and i wish to God i had never seen facebook, that i had never signed up.

Invariably it would lead back to this place and what am i feeling? Hurt? Regretful? Nostalgic? A combination of all?

I'm beginning to feel like I'm turning 30 and i have no fucking idea what I'm going to do and 10 years ago i never thought life would have put me here. Let me be clear, i don't regret being here, i don't wish it was different, but i never would have guessed this would be me. I didn't expect to see a lot of those faces ever again.

Seeing all those faces stirs up the old isolated lonely feeling that was so common to me in high school. Feelings i had long sense either coped with or outgrew or fought down but the emotional response to the ghost lined hall ways of Pendleton High School are as real as they were when i graduated.

I'm afraid somethings never change and there will always be a part of me stricken with self doubt and insecurity. All i can do is get up tomorrow and keep trying.