Time sure seems to pass pretty quickly. By now it’s been about six years since I was in high school. Maybe the growth is actually an illusion, but it sure feels like I’m miles away from the kid I was at 18, which makes it extra jarring to run into relics from my past.
Tami and I both transferred to Sickles High School our sophomore years. My switch was the result of a move up north, but Tami came to SHS because private school life didn’t suit her. Both of us were on the swim team, took the same bus to and from school, and lived in the same neighborhood, but neither of us really hung out much beyond the season. Tami went to school in the south and I went to school in NY and moved to MD. I pretty much thought I’d never see her again.
Considering that I live in the DC/MD area, I guess it’s not that out of the ordinary to have people i know come up here to live, but it sure feels weird for someone I knew from (what feels like) a lifetime ago to live so near again. Weirder still is that we started to hang out.
Having such a shared past makes it seem like we have a lot more in common than we actually did. I mean, hanging out at practice or team functions doesn’t really make for a real friendship, at least not to me, so it was weird to actually meet and get to know this person who I felt I knew, but didn’t really.
In a way, it’s similar to, say, my friendship with Kai. We probably knew each other better than Tami and I did thanks to being literal neighbors and hanging out at Cornell., but we’ve both expressed that we actually got to know each other much better through our online lives. Sometimes all it takes is a change of scenery or a new venue to expose you to how cool someone is or how well you get along with other people.
So we did hang out a bunch while she lived in DC, saw ice hockey games, caught a few movies, and hit up a few bars (Now that’s a weird one. Most of my old friends from high school have never seen me drink). Conversation was made less awkward by being able to catch up over people we both remembered from our high school days until we actually became friends once again.
It still feels weird to think about the fact that Tami has known me since I was 15, but I attribute that more to the fact that I’ve moved around so much in my life. I don’t think I attended any one school for more than three years and I don’t keep in touch with a lot of the people I knew before most of my moves. I wonder if she thinks I’m different from how I was back then. I mean, I actually thought that I should try and grow a mustache back then. Thank god those days are over.
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