miles and stones

Did you know that my previous post was actually the 50th post I've done on this blog? I'd call that an accomplishment. The only other blog I kept up consistently (until I graduated high school) was my Xanga. Good times.

Speaking of accomplishments, and high school, and good times...

I recently did a facebook search for some of the most memorable people I went to school with. I didn't go to high school with any of them, mind you. In the middle of 6th grade we moved from Auburn to Buckley and thus I started at a new school. And after those four months of unspeakably disgusting and horrifying things--I'm not exaggerating--I started at private school.

So most of these people I have not been in contact with. A few of them stayed my friends for a couple years after I left Auburn, and some I reconnected with via MySpace (ha) during high school. And back then I was met with bitter disappointment when my previous best friend and first "boyfriend" started posting his sex life on MySpace (haha) and was ignored by people who I thought had been good acquaintances.

Today, I discovered something much better: me. I am better. My life is better. Not that it's a contest or a competition, but I really am.

None of them have left Washington, and most haven't left Auburn. A few have gone to community college. I only know of one that went to a university. One or two got married, lots had babies. Not necessarily in that order or even in combination with.

And I could have been one of those. I could have stayed in Auburn and continued to "date" my best friend. I could have gone to Auburn High School (or would I have transferred to the new and fancier Auburn Mountainview High School?) and spent my time taking secular classes and making myself secular-ly artsy and dramatic in the big PAC that I so often visited as a child. I could have married my best friend and had babies. Or maybe we would have broken up and I'd date a few other guys. I could have moved in with someone and gone off the deep end.

Here I was, all this time, thinking that if only I could have kept those friends, things might have been different. I have spent so many years wondering how my life might have changed if I had stayed in Auburn. So many hardships prevented. So many discomforts avoided. Here I was, taking everything for granted.

As much as I loved those people, and would love them still if we continued to be friends, if I had stayed I would have made a complete mess of myself.

But I didn't. I am better. My life is better. It's not written in stone or anything, but I have definitely, blessedly, come a long way.