A recent conversation brought me back to one of my favourite high school memories. One of the most special nights of my youth and now that I look back on it, a night where I discovered the emotion that I would thrive for in the years that followed.
Mind you I’m only 4 years out of high school, but these 4 years have changed so much.
I can’t even remember how the night started, I just remember laying on my best friend’s trampoline at night and listening to music. The three of us looked up at the night sky and listened to one of our favourite bands of the time. As cliché as it sounds, it was definitely our Perks Of Being a Wallflower “tunnel” moment. Or at least it was for me.
We weren’t talking much. We may have been singing along a little. I just remember at one point we all agreed that we were genuinely happy and content in that moment. I can’t think of anything we would have been genuinely stressed out about around that time aside from your usual school work and exams, but we were so relieved in that moment.
It’s one of those memories that I feel a little bit of every time I think about it. I’m brought back to when we were all there. We saw each other almost every day. Now one of them is on the other side of the country, and the other is still around the corner but we both live busy, hectic lives and really only ever see each other when the other is back in town.
I don’t regret how we’ve become, don’t get me wrong. I know that in a drop of a hat we would all come running if we needed each other. It’s just a memory that feels so far away at this time. It’s a memory that I will never forget and will never take for granted.
Certain memories will always be that way. They take you back and you feel it. Not the full emotion you had during that time, but just enough to reference it. That night brought an overwhelming feeling of content that saddens me at times. It’s a feeling that is so hard to achieve in my adult life. It’s an emotion that feels impossible to reach right now. And we found it by accident on a random night wasting time. I fear I may never feel that way again, but some days I try so hard to make it happen.
Once, a friend and I were walking around our childhood neighbourhood and walked past our elementary school. We started talking about memories from our early grades and people who moved away and such. She said something that has stuck with me ever since.
“It’s weird, But I feel like I’m just waiting for it to start all over again one day. And it won’t.”
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shannon20something 