A friend of mine made the comment that a mutual friend was behaving like she was still in high school. You hear this a lot especially amongst girls – so high school – but the truth is that nobody really changes much from who they were in high school. The type of person we are then is the type of person we are now. If you were a bitch and pretentious and snotty – there is a damn good chance you are like that now. I’ve talked to my good friend from high school about this before – I am just like I was in high school – maybe older, maybe wiser, a little heavier (ahem) – but I’m the same Rachel that roamed the halls of Lakeside High School in Atlanta, who skipped school and smoked pot by the Pokey River and played guitar with AA and tried to sing, I had parties then, I have parties now. I was an A and B student, liked by my teachers – enjoyed school. Then, as now, I moved through many groups of friends and a very few I held closer than the rest, but I moved independently through these groups and was well liked and liked in kind.
Then as now, I’m not the most popular, the prettiest, the baddest, the smartest – I’m Rachel – and then as now I’m pretty comfortable with who that is. My mom likes to say I had the most confident walk in the school – she always talks about picking me after school and watching me walk out – and I tell her “fake it till you make it, baby” – although I’m pretty sure she never picked me up in high school even once. She must be remembering grade school – and I’m sure I had a cocky walk in third grade.