What about not being good enough

In less than two months, it'll be twenty years since high school graduation. For a day or so, you entertain the thought of returning for it. And then think, what would be different now from then? You would still not be good enough or important enough to be someone if you went. It would only dredge up the mostly long-buried feelings of inadequacy that were deeply formed those years at Bishop Ryan High School. Despite graduating as the class valedictorian, participating in some sports and being a friendly person, you were still on the outskirts. Invited to parties by way of someone else, not because you were directly wanted. Shut down by teachers and counselors who told you, "You can't" and "You're not smart enough to get those scholarships" and "Your test scores will never be high enough." Though they were wrong on most all of it, the words seared into your brain.

While running in the park the other day, you thought of all the things you did in your short thirty-seven years. Even if you haven't managed to have a child or invent something or become rich or important, you've taken a major stab at life. Truthfully, you've probably done more than anyone you graduated with. Often when looking at pictures of the past, it's hard to believe that you did all that stuff. So driven to succeed and do things. Where did it come from?

Part of not being good enough is proving yourself, and in a way that was due to the depressing high school experience. And the other way was of course, losing your dad and wanting to live so that he would be proud of you, and also wanting to burden your mom.

There's no sense to go back to that reunion.