Down Memory Lane

I received an email this past week from a good friend of mine in high school. She had managed to track me down using the marvels of Google and had taken the chance to email me. To make this feat a bit more amazing I've undergone a name change (last name and nickname) and my friend lives in Japan. I was a bit shocked that she found me and even more excited that she remembered me.

This friend was an exchange student from Japan and we became good friends almost instantly. I have some fantastic memories of the time we spent together. But I didn't remember everything. When she sent me a second email and mentioned some of her memories, it sent me scrambling back to my old yearbooks. There were things I had forgotten. So for the last two days I've been looking back at old pictures and reliving my high school years. I'm shocked at how porous my memories of that time have become (then again it was 16 years ago). I feel a bit old lately.

I was not a particularly popular kid in high school but I had a couple of good friends. I am remembering lunches spent with a candy bar and a notebook. The faculty trusted me enough that if they caught me out of the lunch room and in the building they left me alone. I'm remembering awesome days listening to 8 Tracks in the Journalism Room while laying out a newspaper. I'm remembering driving friends home and to events (I was one of the early ones with a car). I remember the hallways and the choir common room where I spent a ton of my free time watching MTV. Mostly I've been remembering friends who I haven't thought about in a long time.

The city recently remodeled the high school and it looks nothing like the school I went to almost two decades ago. The last time I drove by I didn't even recognize that it was the same school. And in a way that makes me sad. I realize that probably very few of my favorite teachers are still there, but I kind of want the halls to look the same.

It's been a bittersweet couple of days. I've been reminded of some of the amazing times I had in high school. I've been remembering old friends and old teachers. I've been reminded a bit of that passionate youth I used to be. And at the same time I'm reminded that I've gotten older and that nothing has stayed the same. But I have to thank Fumiko. I would never have gone back to those old yearbooks. And for that doumo arigatou gozaimasu.