Thursday, September 9, 2010

A letter to my fellow graduates...

As the day that I have dreaded for 10 years is right around the corner I've found myself with less dread and more excitement towards attending my 10 year high school reunion.  Why I am excited is something that I've been pondering for a few weeks now.  I am excited about seeing where everyone is in their lives today, but dread some of the old, less exciting memories and labels we all had.  The only people that can truly understand the way I feel are my fellow MHS Class of 2000 classmates.  So, this blog post is composed as a letter to them.

Dear MHS Class of 2000,

Can you believe this day is upon us?  It's been ten years since we passed each other in the hallways, ten years since we sat together as Seniors at a football game, ten years since hearing the "thump, thump, thump" of Buddy Guin over the intercom, ten years since we crossed the stage as the graduating class of 2000.  Boy how time flies!

In the years since graduation, I have found myself pondering how today would go.  Who would come?  Would everyone come in and immediately flock to their old cliques?  Who would look exactly the same and who would look totally different? But mostly, I've thought about what you all would think of who I've become.  And, I'm sure I'm not alone in that.  In that thinking, though, I realized I was focusing more on who I was in high school, than who I am today.

Truth is, I didn't have a fantastic nor an awful high school experience.  I wasn't one of the uber-popular kids nor was I relentlessly teased and made-fun of.  I was somewhere, caught in the middle.   I was the goodie-goodie girl, the nice one that got run over, the girl who desperately tried out for cheerleading 3 times just because she wanted to fit in.  Many times I was ignored, sometimes people were mean to me, and other times I was made to feel really good about myself.  All of these experiences make me different than each and every one of you.

More important than the differences we had in high school, are the experiences that I shared and witnessed with all of you:  The very first bomb threat of Mooresville Senior High School, the expansion of our little town of Mooresville that once resembled Mayberry into Race City USA, being confronted with the realities of depression through the suicides of a teacher and an administrator in our Freshman year, the loss of four dear friends - Brett Kortright, Lee Barnett, Jamey Bagget and Lamar Caldwell - who were taken from us far too early, and the fact that we are the only people who crossed that stage as part of the Mooresville Senior High School Class of 2000!  

We all crossed that stage with labels:  the nerd, the jock, the popular one, the class clown, the band geek, the mean girl, the weirdo, the cheerleader, and, of course, the goodie-goodie.  More important are the labels that we have today:  the teacher, the doctor, the lawyer, the businessman and woman, the wife, the husband, the mother, the father, and the friend.

Let's have fun reminiscing; but in that, I hope to re-get to know each of you for who you have become and put who we might have been in high school where it belongs....in the past.


With love,

Lindsey

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