You can all relate in some way or another to knowing everything about everyone in your town. Knowing every little place in your town that, every time you pass, you are guaranteed to see someone’s car that you know. Having your town house of pizza that serves the hands down best pizzas, subs and fries you’ve ever eaten. Going to school with the same 200 kids every year for 18 years, each one forever holding a special place in your heart.
Growing up in a suburb, you lived in a neighborhood full of liveliness; bike riding and scootering in the cul-de-sac until the very second you were called in for dinner. Neighbors were, by default, your best friends. As long as they were willing to play Tamagotchi with you, make lemonade stands, and make snowmen on snow days, nothing else mattered. Everyone went to one of the few different elementary schools in your town and, if your friends tried to claim the elementary school they went to was better than yours, you would never fail to proudly defend your elementary school always saying yours was “the best of the best.”
These elementary schools created the foundation of who you became and what you became known for within your homey, suburban town. It was at one of these schools where some of your first real friendships blossomed, with just a few of those friendships carrying on throughout high school. Your elementary school was the beginning of it all, where you learned to do the monkey bars, the steps of the cotton eyed joe, and where you had your first experience on stage playing a role in “The Magic School Bus” or “Rainbow Fish.” You were also probably on a co-ed rec soccer team that your dad coached.
The only thing that got you through the games in the blistering heat was the fact that orange slices would be brought out come half-time. You went to your town’s annual 4th of July block party downtown and waited in long lines of jumpy, excited kids for face paint and to ride the ponies. As a girl scout or boy scout, you got accustomed to sporting your uniforms and standing outside of Stop and Shop in the cold selling Girl Scout cookies or chocolate bars. Come winter, there were snow days, which were always a thrill to wake up to. You would flutter your eyes open to the brighter than usual stream of light, because of the sun’s reflection off the white, glittering snow, that beamed through the crack between your shade and the window. A fresh coat of snow smothered on the roads outside meant a day full of sledding, frozen, red cheeks and steaming hot chocolate was ahead.
As you got older and became a “big kid” you entered middle school, where you went through one of the grossest phases of your life. Boys didn’t know how to talk to girls and girls didn’t know how to talk to boys. Everyone had, or was soon to be getting braces and some people were still trying to lose that baby chub. Girl’s fashion consisted only of Abercrombie, Aéropostle and Hollister, wearing anything but these brands was highly questionable. At some point in middle school you probably started to like someone and had no idea know how to talk to them, so you broke the ice by asking them to slow dance during “Fall for You” by Secondhand Serenade at a classic, middle school dance. By 8th grade, you started to feel more mature, maybe even ready for high school. Then you went on the DC trip with your whole grade and had, what you thought at the time, was the absolute best time of your life. You thought you were so cool with your handheld camera selfies and multiple Facebook albums titled “DC TRIP PART 1” and “DC TRIP PART 2,” which only proved that the maturity you thought you had developed wasn’t quite there yet.
Then, all of a sudden, the year you thought would never come, infamous freshman year of high school, had begun. Always having seen high school kids around town while you were too busy walking downtown with your friends on half-days and going grocery shopping with your mom; you probably never thought that the old, mature, intimidating looking person you once called a “highschooler” would be you. Big halls, new faces and a vast range of opportunities all came out of being in high school. You went there for orientation during the summer going into freshman year and you felt like you would never find your way around, forever a lost freshman, wandering aimlessly. That was until sophomore year, when a new group of students came in to take your place as the confused, scared, youngest group at the high school. You involved yourself in whatever ways you felt best fit you.
Sports, student council, theater, art, and a vast number of clubs were all ways that students found their niche. You would go to football games in your school spirit wear, and look up, with trembling hands, at the countless rows of rowdy, intimidating upperclassmen, not wanting to make the wrong choice of where to sit on the bleachers. You would dress up for spirit days and walk around school without a care in the world of what you were wearing, whether it was neon, Hawaiian, black out, white out or camo. And all day, in every class, your eyes would periodically glance at the clock, longing for it to hit 1:57pm, which meant another long day of school was over.
Come junior year, you would get excited and anxious just at the mention of “prom.” Anyone could tell anyone that prom was not worth the stress it caused. The dress shopping, creative promposals, ride in the limo or party bus and after party were much more fun than prom itself. Before you knew it, time had flown and you were headed full force into senior year. You never thought you would be the oldest, holding all the power and intimidation you had once been so terrified of. An excited, loud and proud entrance was made into senior year, soon followed by a long few months of college application and acceptance anxiety and an obsession over maintaining your GPA until senior slide began. If you got into the college of your dreams, you jumped for joy until move-in day and if you didn’t, you settled for a different school that you grew to love and accept as your new home.
You had the time of your life at a New Years Eve party, as clock hit 12, it became the year you had seen printed on shirts and sweatshirts and had forever heard in association with you and your grade, your year of graduation. It hit you that you had minimal time left with the group of students you grew up with for 18 years, essentially the only people you had ever really known your whole life. You seized every moment you had left as seniors of your town. You hung out with friends, went to all of the local, one-of-a-kind restaurants that you knew you would miss next year and spent countless nights driving through the winding neighborhoods that you had come to navigate like the back of your hand, blasting throwbacks.
You fully embraced your final sports season or musical performance, and come your last game with 30 seconds left on the clock or last moment on stage before the curtains closed, came a stream of tears. You came to terms with the fact that this joyous, carefree, happy-go-lucky period of your life was ending. You had never considered life without the same 199 people constantly surrounding you, people you know the life stories of, people who grew up just like you, knowing the same people, streets and local restaurants that you know.
You probably went to some kind of senior dance and celebrated a long 18 years of growing up together, making memories and influencing each other to be the people you are today. Then came that bittersweet moment when you saw a sea of your school colors against the bright blue sky as all of newest alum threw their graduation caps to the sky. You looked around at all your classmates that surrounded you and looked at their faces and saw that they were just as relieved, yet, also upset, almost in tears, over the fact that they had just graduated high school. You looked down at your feet, shoes digging into the turf field and you had flashbacks to the many close games you had played and seen played on that field, to the sweat and tears shed on that field after tryouts or a tough practice. But now it was no longer your field. You walked to the car with your family, cap and diploma in hand, and salty tears rolled down each cheek.
Your summer going into college may have been one of the best ones you had yet. You spent all the time you could with friends and family, knowing that, come September, you wouldn’t continue seeing the same, familiar faces everyday like you were used to. With friends, you made incredible memories, you went on beach trips, had countless late-night bonfires and would just hang out. With family, you cherished and appreciated every moment you spent with them. You reminded yourself that, in college, you don’t get fresh cooked meals or have the luxury of being able to step into the room next to you to have conversation with your mom, dad or siblings. Then, after the long “graduation party season” you ended up not seeing a lot of the same people again, and might not until your 5 and 10 year reunions.
You often thought about and reflected on high school and probably still do. You thanked yourself for getting involved, pushing yourself to be outgoing, and making the incredible friends you made. You will forever appreciate the special relationships you made with each person, especially with the people in your group of friends and appreciate how each of them impacted your life and made high school special four years to remember. You hope those relationships last a lifetime and while you miss high school and living in your comforting, suburban town, you know it will always be home to you and to all of your classmates. That is the special, one-of-a-kind connection you will forever have with a select group of 200 people when you grow up in a small, suburban town.
