When the past finds you

This past week a friend of mine posted on Facebook one of those horrible school dance pictures where two young people are posed together and pretend to be thrilled to be together. This picture was no exception. It was my senior year and a junior friend asked me to go to the dance with him.  While we were good friends and had been in the school orchestra together for the past three years, we were definitely not in love with each other.

So, when it came time for the obligatory picture and he was asked to drape his arms around me, he did and I let him, for traditions sake. While the resulting picture isn’t bad there’s no denying the lack of chemistry going on between us. 

It didn’t help that my date got food poisoning earlier that evening and spent most of his time being miserable, so in addition to being awkwardly posed, he has the added greenish hue of a bad reaction to cheap pizza.

That was sixteen long years ago. It’s been years since I’ve even thought about that night. Seeing this picture brought back all the awkwardness of high school, the uncertainty, and the desire to do things the “right way.” It’s amazing how insecure I was as a teenager.

On Facebook people commented on how little I had changed over the years.  And on the outside it’s true, minus the few extra wrinkles, the few extra pounds, and shorter hair, I haven’t changed much at all.  On the inside it’s a different story.  I’m a completely different person now than I was then, and the change is for the better. All those trivial insecurities are gone and replaced with problems that actually matter. While don’t like my current trials, I wouldn’t go back to being my teenage me for anything.