I’ve been wrestling with a bit of an insomnia monkey in the last month and as such I’ve been trying to keep my pre-bed routine fairly dull and screen-free. Last weekend when I was staying at my parents’ house I made the mistake of grabbing my high school yearbook off the shelf at around 10 pm. Big mistake. Huge.
Soon I was poring over the pages, trying to remember private jokes from…well…from a while ago and pondering the meaning of several very deep and heartfelt messages from people I didn’t even remember being friends with. It also got me thinking about this article. The gist of it is that as we get older we’re less open to forming new friendships. I have three close friends I’ve held on to since high school and several more from college who are pretty critical to my existence. *smiles and waves * The whole thing made me wonder about the ways we are more open to others when we’re adolescents. This is of particular interest to me because I write about adolescents -and particularly ones who form unlikely friendships and relationships.
There was one message in my yearbook from someone who claimed a conversation we had (May 24th 1994 -yes he cited the date) changed his life. Yep, changed his life! And I have no memory of it, except a sneaking suspicion I might have told him I thought he was gay. Not so subtle in those days. Heck, still not very subtle.
There was another short message from someone who simply signed as “no future boy”. Now that was intriguing. No idea on that one either. So the bottom line is reading your high school yearbook is great fodder for writing, and very bad for sleeping.
Ideas In Things 