What Happens In High School, Stays In High School

What Happens In High School, Stays In High School1

Does it matter who was cool and who wasn't? If it does, it goes to show how much you've grown beyond the borders and constraints of high school maturity and popularity. If you are still the same today as you were five, ten years ago in high school, you either grew up way too fast and for that, I pity you, or you never grew up at all. I say this with the deepest respect and love and gratitude for those people who really showed respect or concern or care or friendship for those less fortunate or less popular or less cool than themselves in high school.2

But in the intervening five years since I left high school I've had nothing but question marks when it came to understanding what my peers saw in me when they noticed Jennifer Broadbent walking down the hallway. What did people see when they looked at that ill-dressed, make-up-less, quiet little tom-boy fashion-faux-paux journalism honors class nerd? IS that what people thought? What did people think was going on in my head when they'd see me sitting in class? What niche did I fit in anyway? Was I a Nerd? A Loner? A Loser? A Drifter? A Shy Kid? Weirdo? Stalker? Freak? Idiot? Misfit? Wannabe? Was I just 'DJ Broadbent's little sister' to everyone? What was DJ Broadbent in everyone's mind for that matter?3

Or who was that quiet kid... the one who had his back pack on his desk all the time leaning against it the entire class period and never looked right in anyone's eyes like he didn't want to be there but he didn't want to be anywhere else either. A Freak. A Weirdo. A Loser. Someone you took a wide circle around if you had to pass by in the hallway. Maybe that kid's drunk dad beat he hell out of him every night. So every day in class he was contemplating running away and never looking back... only his dad would probably start beating up his little sister if he took off so he sticks around only so he can protect his little sister from getting wailed on.4

How about the kid who always smelled bad. Yeah... everyone knows the kid they couldn't stand being around because you wondered if they even cared about taking a shower. Well maybe that kid lives on the streets. Maybe that kid's parents were such freakin' cheap skates they wouldn't buy the necessities for their kids, like deodorant and new clothes and new shoes so the kid could have feet that smelled decent and clothes from this century that didn't have holes in them before the kid was born. Maybe the kid's mom was going through chemotherapy for cancer and his dad had been laid off so they couldn't afford to pay the bills let alone buy things like food and medicine.5

What about that shy, quiet girl who didn't dress right and didn't do the right things and kinda acted funny and always sat in the corner and when she actually talked to people you couldn't get her to shut up like she was on speed or something, or ADD or whatever. Maybe that girl got knocked around too much when she was a little kid and it caused some neurological damage and guess what, that girl has a seizure disorder now, and she is in pain, all of the time. She couldn't tell anyone about it though because it didn't make sense so she was quiet, but her brain was always seizing and that's why she's weird.6

It's not cool to have parents who don't care. It's not cool to have parents who beat you up and tear you down and rip you apart inside. It's not cool to be poor. Kids aren't supposed to have problems and be stressed out and depressed and hate their home lives. But it happens. It happens more than a lot of you might think. It happens to rich kids and poor kids and everyone in between. Jocks and preps and nerds and geeks and stoners and losers and freaks and goths, etc. etc. etc.7

Everyone has problems. But maybe that kid you were mean to in high school was like that for reasons beyond their control. Not that you could take it back or change it now... but give that person a chance and see what they've done for themselves. See their success. See how they have changed because most people DO change after high school. Don't hold grudges. Don't hold stigmas and stereotypes and social statuses against each other anymore. Geez, half or more of us are married. Does it matter who had a crush on who and who didn't want that crush and who asked who out and stole this guy or that girl or looked at so and so the wrong way and ruined this class and wore the weird clothes or had the wrong hair style or whatever? Hell no.8

Fight the f*cking system, not each other. Take a step back and look at it from another perspective for a change... that's all.