High School: Round 2

What's painful about a past is usually nothing to do with what actually happened then. There were things you did, things you wish you'd done, things you really really wish you hadn't done. But any decisive action you took, or heart breaking decision you made then has disappeared into the ether never to be seen again. The hard part is figuring out how to bring it all forward. The hard part is figuring out how to bring everything that existed then into your present day life.

Memories are often so potent they can overpower your vision of a situation at hand. In my case, that means that this entire post-work pre-school period since March has been a strange re-telling of my senior year in high school. (It hasn't helped to watch a show about the lavish, hyper-aggrandized high school experience on the Upper East Side of New York. Or that they just aired their big prom episode tonight). I've spent two years in San Francisco, neither of which I thought would even happen. I had every intention of passing through before I began the less traumatic, and significantly more enjoyable days of post-college life. And then suddenly I found myself here for a year, moving into an apartment in San Francisco proper with two high school friends, and falling into the trappings of a relationship that supposedly came with a self-imposed expiration date. Flash forward another year, I'm just home from a whirlwind Eurotrip, planning for the last type of Grad School I expected to attend, and moving to a city of curiosity, but which I've been ambivalent about for the a long time. Somehow, while I was trying my damnedest to disentangle myself from a city I was terrified of, I managed to unfold the exact existence I'd hoped for years ago. All out of a situation which, at the time, seemed abysmally unfavorable.

There's no picture perfect prom this time, there's no high school boyfriend to ask me in just the right way, or a beautiful stairway to walk down. Not that those existed the first time around. In fact, none of them did -- maybe the perfect dress, but everything else was light years away. Which was almost the reason I was angry in the first place. However, there's also none of the unfortunate realities of the time that left me bitter, heartbroken and determined to leave behind anything remotely related in the first place. There's a wonderful family, some amazing irreplaceable friends, and an incredible unexpected love. Though this may be one of the happiest times of my life and I can feel it the end of a wonderful (but difficult) era coming soon, I couldn't be more grateful for the people and the place that has taught me so much.

Did it really only happen because I opened myself to it? Or was it all bound to happen in the first place? Even more, did it happen because I expected absolutely nothing, so have been caught off guard?

Maybe it totally pays to have nothing expected, to smash all pre-conceptions and just fly totally blind. And maybe it pays to read more books.