Down the Rabbit Hole

NFA - 20 Years and Counting...

This weekend I'm planning to attend my reunion. It has been 20 years since I walked across that great green lawn and accepted my diploma with over five hundred of my fellow classmates. This morning in honor of the upcoming event, I changed my profle picture. The girl in that picture has major bangs and virtually no clue about the world she was about to plunge into headfirst.

For me high school was more about preparation than fun with my free time spent in labs and building extra curricular activities like High School Aquanauts and Independent Studies with Mr. T that would fill out my college applications. Looking back, I think I was some kind of science nerd-hybrid who divided my attentions between Project O and third floor of Main Building and running around with my boyfriend doing too much stuff that we weren't supposed to. I never joined a team sport and did not belong to any traditional clubs or organizations. Still, I managed to attend both my Junior and Senior proms and a dinner dance here and there. I cheered from the stands for track meets and football games. I went to the drama club's production of the Crucible. I shopped in the student store and ate lunches on front lawn. I took creative writing class with Wally Lamb in the basement of Cranston. I hung out with Tammy Winter under the great tree. I was thrilled to drive my Toyota camry to school myself and park on Joseph Perkins. I even managed to duck out on Senior Cut day with a bunch of friends. We went to Scarborough Beach and I don't think my stomach stopped flip-flopping until we crossed over into Rhode Island. I raced to classes between bells and tried to devise fool-proof ways to avoid changing for gym. I once fell down the stairs in Main building, baked poached pears for Mr. Heffernan's world history class and did a stint as lab assistant for Mr. Bacshoutta which drove my boyfriend crazy. I funneled into pep rallies with the rest of the school. I participated, but my eyes were always on the horizon...my feet always ready to bolt when the time came. Just a few weeks after graduation, I would be off to Australia and New Zealand as a science delegate for People to People, and beyond that I thought, the rest of the world.

The irony now is that 20 years and what often feels like two lifetimes later, I live barely a stone's throw from NFA. I have gone around the world to settle down in the one place I could not wait to leave behind. I take my daughter walking on campus and I marvel at how much it has changed. It seems that the place has always been in a constant state of evolution and something more, it is really beautiful. I'm not sure I ever stopped to appreciate the cherry blossoms with their plump pink petals or the alternating roses lining the athletic field or the aged and stoic appeal of the rose colored bricks of Slater. Back then, I wore the red and white colors with pride but I'm not sure I ever really appreciated the place or how the diverse student body, challenging faculty and sprawling campus prepared me for college and adventures beyond.

I'm looking forward to seeing faces who, while they may not all be familiar, they are part of those years, part of that experience. It will be nice to take a night to reconnect and remember when life possessed a sweet and innocent simplicity. The recent forum posts from former classmates leaves me wistfully wishing I had paid just a little bit more attention to other things, spent just a little bit more time living in the moment than I did back then. Here's to hoping that 20 years is just long enough to catch up on fun.