One night last week I attended an office holiday party for a job I recently left starring the people I used to see every day and now miss dearly. The celebration was at a restaurant about an hour from where I live but very close to my former office and I have to admit that it was the same restaurant where I planned last year’s party so it’s not like I’d never been there before. Even so, I drove around the surrounding blocks so many times looking for parking that I actually had to pull over and turn on my GPS because I no longer had any idea where I was going. I was like a block away.
There are people who can casually glance around and know immediately where they are and which direction they should be facing. I would not have anything in common with these people. Back in my alternative lifestyle twenties I lived in Boulder, Colorado which was perfect for me. If I was driving toward the mountains I was headed home. If the mountains were in my rear view mirror I was going to work. I was never confused and remember this was the heyday of drugs.
There’s a feeling of instant comfort being around people whose lives and problems have intertwined with yours on a daily basis. The people you work with spend more time per day with you than almost anyone else in your life and they get to witness every facet of your personality. They’ve observed you under stress, shared your frustrations as well as your triumphs, listened to you obsess over nothing, heard you ream your kids out on the phone and may have even seen Mountain Dew come out your nose. They’ve heard all your bullshit. You’ve heard theirs. If you’ve been away it’s like going home. Or at least back to your first dorm.
I’ve never been sold on home-schooling because I think that the social experience we have in school prepares us to be healthy coworkers. To paraphrase Kahlil Gibran, we learn much about ourselves from our reflection in the eyes of others. You didn’t think that someone who used to live in Boulder wasn’t going to quote Gibran, did you? Our school years teach us the boundaries we’ll need for the rest of our life which is why high school remains such a loaded subject for otherwise normal adults. It’s a time when hormones, bad skin and still-forming brain tissue combine to magnify all real and imagined hurts not only as they happen but for years and years to come. Ask the easygoing executive standing next to you at the water cooler wearing a tailored suit and nice watch if he went to his last high school reunion then step away from the cooler and no one gets hurt.
My husband and I were at dinner recently with a couple I know from college. The guy and I even went to high school together before that. He mentioned the name of someone from our high school days whom he had heard some bad news about and I cut him off mid-sentence with, “He dumped me sophomore year. I couldn’t care less what happened to him.” Everyone at the table just sat and looked at me dumbfounded. My husband squeezed my hand and murmured, “Easy there, killer, it’s thirty-five years ago.” But at that moment I was back at the dumping and trust me, I hadn’t thought about that moron for decades.
I think I’m over it now though.