They say it takes anywhere from 7 to 10 years for a single person’s cells to completely regenerate. So, in a way, after a certain amount of time, one can become a completely different person, separated by time and at one from the previous iteration. It’s not much of a jarring thought either - I feel different in every conceivable way from my 17-year-old self, so it only makes sense to understand that I am.
This to say, when my high school's Alumni board reached out with an invite to my classes 10-year reunion, it felt too foreign to even consider.
I have no qualms with my alma mater. I have no qualms with the people I went to school with. I have no qualms, even, with my past self – the oneI am completely different from. But when it came time to RSVP, I chose not to.
There were a million reasons I gave myself at the time. I’m older now, I don’t know any of these people anymore, I don’t even have a connection to those people or that place anymore. Who I was at the time is so far removed from who I am now. How can I possibly think about returning?
And I felt… indifferent in my choice. Not good or bad, just nothing. What would a 10-year reunion really achieve for me anyway? What would being thrust back into the relationships and environment of my youth give me that I have not cultivated myself?
So, September 11th, the day of the Reunion (good grief, were no other Saturdays available?), came and went.
But then 18 days later, I received a letter in the mail. A thin, A4 envelope, with my school’s cobalt banner and white crest at the top of it. Curious, I thought. What on earth would they have sent me? In my confused state, I sat at my kitchen bench, opened the paper satchel roughly, and pulled out the letter. But there was no letter, no sealed message or fanfare from the alumni board. Instead was a pamphlet, that I didn’t recognise at first.
Year 12 2016
The memory hit me like a crashing wave to my body. Suddenly, I was in my year 12 homeroom, it’s the last day of school, and we had been handed this very paper, and asked to write to our future selves, asking eighty questions. The letter would then be returned in ten years.
I turned the pages over, inspecting my writing, the same chicken scratch that I never quite shook. I read the names of each of my Homeroom teachers, the one I had forgotten with time, now returned to their foggy faces. Eighty questions, with eighty answers. And I didn’t know how to feel about it. I read them with a cool indifference, giggling at my past self and her antics. I imagined my class, having them returned to them the night of the reunion. Did they laugh too? Did they cry, even? I could imagine at least one person did.
I placed the letter on the bookshelf, and went about my evening.
But the letter plagued me, more than I cared to admit. I sat through dinner thinking about the answers I had glazed over, the chicken scratch I giggled at, and something kneaded at the base of my chest just thinking about it.
Later that night, when everyone was asleep, I returned to the letter, like it was some big, scandalous secret to hide from my parents. Sitting on the edge of the same bed I did then, I read it again, and I remember it all.
Who am I? Sascha.
My nickname? Sasch…
Favourite Food? Apples.
Favourite Drink? Water
That hasn’t changed.
Favourite colour? Pink
That has changed.
Favourite accessory? Rings.
Which I hate wearing most days now.
It’s the little things that make me smile. The way I proudly proclaimed my love for shoes, or that I couldn’t think of a favourite movie, so I listed ‘Se7en’ because I had just watched it for the first time the night before. But some of it's harder to face:
My Best Friend? Her name is…
Well. We don’t talk anymore.
What I want to do when I leave school? Move to America, become an actress.
Well, that’s the first disappointment I can give her.
A goal before thirty? Be married and have children?
I’m 27! What does she think I am, a child bride?
In ten years, I see myself? Happy.
My god, I was so green. So endlessly optimistic and hopeful. I saw the best in others and assumed that’s how the rest of humanity saw the world too. I grieve that girl.
If I could speak to her, what would I say? How could I face that girl, knowing I failed her? How can I assure her that it’s alright, and it was all meant to be this way? That I abandoned her childhood dreams, because the industry ruined me, beat me to a pulp and stripped me down to bare bones, leaving me empty.
Should I tell her she still hasn’t been in love? How can I explain that to her without heartbreak, because it’s okay, and I have so much love around me regardless?
Should I tell her she’s not weird? She wouldn’t believe me, hell, I don’t even believe me, but I wish someone had told me, in earnest, at least one time.
I think she would hate who we became. I don’t really blame her though. She was a child. I made these choices for us, because I’m an adult and they were adult choices. It’s a disappointment to my childhood self, but I guess that’s a part of growing up. We let go, dreams fade and new ones take their place. The pain comes and then one day ... it softens.
Grief is a funny thing. It’s not linear, and it doesn’t always make sense. So, when I think about my reunion again, I wonder; if it was grief that kept me away? Or fear? Or even shame, that deep, sickening feeling that takes hold of my chest when I remember too much of it all.
And then, I stop, I take a breath, and I let myself feel it. I grieve again. All of it. Because I am older now, and so much more than ever. I am not the person I was and I never will be again. But she loved me, that much is clear in her the final message:
Hey, if things didn’t go to plan, all good, there is still time. If they did however, good job babe!!!! I love you!!!
I let myself shed a selfish tear and smile fondly as I think of her. I hope she’s okay and I hope she can forgive me. For all I have done, all I couldn’t and all I am yet to do. So, one day, when we cross paths again and I see her in the face of a newer, younger girl, I will be kind to her the way others weren’t.