Confessions of a High School Loser, Part 1

For many, high school was hardly the best of times. Fortunately, people grow up.

I left home for good four days after high school – basically the amount of time it took me to pack my suitcases, load the car, and fill it up with gas. There were many good reasons for my abrupt departure, but most central was my status as a stereotypical high school loser. Not a hip, millennial loser with loads of talent like those triple-threat kids on Glee, but a much less cool late ’70s version, complete with frizzy permed hair, over-sized plastic glasses, matching polyester outfits, and really crooked teeth.

Not that I didn’t have any friends. Just not many, and certainly none who were popular by conventional standards. And although well-recognized for my intellect – I did score the most points on my school’s “Reach for the Top” team – I was the kind of smartass who didn’t automatically attract the praise of teachers. Put simply, I was too bitchy to qualify as a teachers’ pet, particularly as I rather enjoyed publicly pointing out when my teachers were wrong. Perhaps a momentarily satisfying tactic, but a profoundly stupid social move on every level. My parents surely winced inwardly the time I was publicly taken to task for telling one Grade 7 instructor that no, I would not do her job for her by helping out one of my classmates. After all, I wasn’t the one getting paid. Ouch. No wonder so many of my classmates booed when my name was announced on graduation night.

Years later I saw Sandy Wilson’s excellent film My American Cousin, shot in the Okanagan Valley not far from where I grew up. In the opening scene, the 12-year-old protagonist writes in her diary, “Nothing. Ever. Happens.” I started laughing uncontrollably in the cinema, as it so appropriately summed up much of my own tortured adolescence. Even though the Okanagan is objectively one of the most beautiful places on earth, featuring scenic mountains, freshwater lakes, vineyards, and orchards, it felt to me that the world was happening somewhere else; to sophisticated urbane people who travelled to world capitals, spoke at least two foreign languages, dressed fashionably, had upper-class mid-Atlantic accents, and attended the the-ah-tuh regularly.

Thus I set out to master the basics of my dreamed-of future existence, including the very strange goal of slogging through a three-volume history of Great Britain in Grade 9. I’m still not certain whether it was me or the local librarian who determined this was somehow essential for my “formation.” By Grade 12 I had done everything possible to generate a successful exit strategy: scholarship exams, university applications, German classes, and a summer of French immersion in Montreal.

I even began training my family about the new me: no longer would my childhood moniker “Barb” suffice; I responded only to the more cosmopolitan “Barbara.” I would physically blanche with horror when family friends and relatives reminded me that as a youngster I was universally known as “Barbie.” I steeled myself for the sustained effort necessary to erase all vestiges of this persona; nothing short of full-scale historical revisionism would be required.

Now, three decades later, after acquiring some much-needed social skills and having settled nicely into a (second) career as an academic, I’m ready to face the past and hopefully have a good laugh about it. I’m heading back for my 30th high school reunion. Not because I have any pressing demons to face. Nor do I need to prove that I’m accomplished on my own terms (although I must admit that the expensive cocktail dress purchase did involve considerations of sending the right message of “sexy and successful meets schadenfreude” – my, that German came in handy).

But I am curious. About those class of ’80 graduates I barely recognize who have friended me on Facebook. What does it mean to go back to a place and a past you have so completely divorced yourself from? Will I have anything to say to people who, for all intents and purposes, have no role in my current life? Did high school constitute the best years of their lives or, like me, the very worst? What mixture of motives sends middle-aged beings to look into the mirror of their collective past for a (hopefully) fun-filled weekend, exposing wrinkles, extra (or fewer) pounds, and dyed hair, all the while sharing life experiences and well-earned wisdom along the way?

Stay tuned to find out. My next dispatch will be from my own personal ground zero: Kelowna Secondary School.

This is the first part of a three part series. For part two, click here.