It's taken two decades but I can finally see them

I graduated from high school 20 years ago this year. I recently attended my reunion at which I had a bit of an eye-opening experience.

Since the moment I left the small school I attended I've always thought of my classmates within the "boxes" in which I mentally kept them throughout our high school careers. You know the boxes I am talking about: the jock, the nerd, the headbanger, the shy one, the mean one, the pretty one, the burnout, the class clown, the teacher's pet, the cheerleader, etc.

Even though each and every one of us have grown up - physically, for sure; although some have stayed stuck at 17 mentally - I've always kept these characterizations for my classmates. I suppose because I have retained my ideas of these folks I am one of those who was somewhat stuck, if you will.

I attended my 10-year-reunion, as well as a somewhat strange 17-year reunion. At the first, I had only been married for four years, was working as a newspaper reporter and still clung to a lot of old insecurities and grudges. By the time the second rolled around, I'd been married more than a decade, had two kids, no longer worked outside the home and had long ago abandoned those old insecurities and grudges. However, despite all my own personal changes, I still thought of my friends in the same vein,.

That all began to change in the months leading up to this most recent reunion. Thanks to Facebook, I know more about my former classmates than I probably ever have. It's a very public place where people feel comfortable sharing a lot of really private information, which is exactly what helped me to begin seeing them as they really are.

Because so many people love to share their political, religious and social beliefs on Facebook, I've been able to get a glimpse into their "real" lives. Additionally, it's allowed me to recognize that even though I categorized them into those neat little boxes so many years ago, in reality we were actually more alike than I ever realized.

So many of us struggled mightily in high school. Twenty years removed from that place has afforded me the wisdom that life wasn't a cake walk for the majority of us. We were just kids but a lot of us were dealing with real issues like eating disorders, drug addiction, parental neglect, sexuality, personal insecurity,  fear of failure and low self-esteem.

A lot of us dressed alike, wore our hair in the same styles, drove similar cars, listened to the same music, applied our make-up in similar ways and yearned for all the same gadgets. Most of us were scared to death to stand out from the crowd so we did our best to fit in. The path of least resistance was a savior for many, I am sure.

Moving on allowed so many of those boys and girls to blossom, but it also provided a rude awakening for some of those kids who'd seemed to peak in high school. They discovered in short order that folks in the real world were not going to provide them the adoration to which they'd become accustomed.

At our reunion, it became clear to me that those tiny boxes in which I'd placed my friends no longer fit. It's all about perspective, really. In this case, when you remove these people from the fish bowl that is high school, it's so much easier to see them as real people instead of the caricatures I'd always seen them as.

The nerds and shy kids I was sure would always have their noses in a book (or a computer screen) turned out to be some of the most out-going people I've ever known. Turns out the class clowns were hiding a lot of issues with their humor and haven't found it very easy to overcome some of those issues. Those kids I thought were burnouts have become well-adjusted, contributing members of society.

Now that I see these people for who they are without the labels I and others affixed to them all those years ago, I recognize that for some life hasn't been a bed of roses.

While there are a lot of my classmates who've been married to the same person for a number of years (some for almost the whole 20 years we've been out of school), there are, sadly, quite a few who are on spouse number two or even three, some who lost their spouse to death and some who still haven't found that special someone. Other people have lost children to miscarriage or to the courts because they were incapable of caring for them.

Drugs and alcohol have played a large role in the lives of so many. Some have won the battle against this evil demon, but there are others who cannot free themselves from its mighty grip.

I know of one classmate who finally came out of the closet and is living the life they were destined for. On the other end of the spectrum, there are still some who can't bring themselves to push that closet door open so they can live an honest life, which is really, really sad to me.

A few people from my class went on to do exactly what they and everyone else always expected them to do: the teacher's kid became a teacher, the boy who always wanted to be a cop is now a captain on the force, the guy who had a dream of being a famous guitarist is now living out that dream and the girl who wanted nothing more than to be a wife and mother has been doing just that for almost 20 years. However, some folks absolutely shocked me with the twists and turns their lives have taken.

Two girls who I never would have expected to become teachers are now working at local schools. Three classmates are now ministers even though I would have never imagined 20 years ago that would be their future careers. I never knew one of my classmates had a deep love for music. He's now a world-renown composer and conductor. One girl who's interest in school 20 years ago was small at best is now a counselor at a local high school.

For as much as some have changed, though, there are some who still struggle to let go of the past, which was evident to me at the reunion. Some people cannot let go of old resentments and bitterness. Some people cannot fathom a world in which they're not still considered "hot" and popular. Some folks are still so mad at how they were treated many years ago that they wish nothing but ill tidings on people who may not even remember the infraction that resulted in all this hatred.

Six of our classmates are no longer with us. Two died while we were still in school: one to leukemia and another to a gunshot wound. Two were killed in car accidents. Another lost her battle with drugs and another took his own life. All of them were unique and special in their own ways and they each could have done good things had they lived. Were a small class that lost too many members too soon.

In the two decades since we graduated, me and my classmates have seen the world change in so many ways and learned that, for the most part, we've all changed too. I just hate that I didn't learn earlier to see and accept them as the people they really are instead of seeing them within the personalities I and others projected upon them. We just might have had better, lasting friendships had this been able to happen.

Douglas High School Class of 1992