One of the things that helps us make it through hard times is knowing that it’s only going to last a short while. The “This too shall pass” concept. Middle school is only going to last three years. High school is only going to last four years. College is only going to last five (seven, eight) years. We go in, do our time and it’s over. We graduate and move on into the “real world.” The pettiness, the gossip, the backstabbing, the cliques—they’ll all end when high school ends. But the thing is, they don’t. They say once and addict, always an addict. I say once an adolescent, always an adolescent. Once the self-conscious state of puberty kicks in, it never goes away. High school continues throughout your life. How many times since you graduated have you said, “It was just like high school”? That’s because life is a continuous cycle of high school, and our mindset takes a lot longer than expected to outgrow that awkward, insecure state of adolescence. Some people were lucky, and this insecurity never really started. They were confident through school, sure of themselves, immune to the frivolous banter and rumors, easily made friends with everyone. And nowadays, they’re still like that. But those folks are few and far between, and most of us are still just as scared and self-loathing as we were ten, fifteen, twenty, years ago. . For most of us, life is just a constant state of adolescence.
A huge part of adolescence is the cliques. Yet since then, every job I’ve worked at has been at least partially divided into cliques. Cooks, servers, busboys, and bartenders, although they may occasionally hang out together, are definitely in a class system. Nordstrom is divided into cliques, mainly through departments. There are popular groups, nerdy groups, leadership groups, alternative groups. Obviously, Savvy and TBD are the cool uperclassmen. BP are like the cool freshmen and sophomores. Shoes is the popular group that is above being popular. Customer service and human resources are your leadership group. And I don’t even have to tell you where housekeeping, maintenance, and the stockpeople fit into that equation.
But if you really want to see a replica of adolescent cliques in adults, you don’t even have to leave the high school. The teachers are involved in a class system as intricate and vital as the students. There are the jocks, the preps, the nerds, the leadership crew. Often they’re divided up by department. Just like with the students, there’s some overlapping, but overall, the lines are clear. Of course, health and PE teachers make up most of the jocks, the science teachers are nerds, and the English teachers are hippies, and the social studies teachers are leadership. For three years, I taught at a public high school. I sat in the staff lounge (not that five tables in a monotone beige room with two microwaves and a broken computer constitutes a lounge, but that’s what you get at a public school) for lunch most every day. Five teachers sat at the corner table—Mike Rogers, PE; Linda Fisher, PE; Kevin Gibson, varsity boys’ basketball coach; Mark Webb, varsity boy’s baseball coach; and Kathy Knight, math. How Mrs.Knight, having no sports affiliation whatsoever, was accepted to the table, I do not know. Just like with my group of girlfriends in middle and high school, if one was missing, everyone at their table knew where they were. “Where’s Mike,” an outsider would ask. “Oh, he’s helping out some students in the gym today.” “Oh, Kathy? She took a long weekend to go see the new grandbaby. She is just so excited about that little one.” They of course were friendly and talked with those of us at other tables if the conversation was right, but no one else ever sat at that table. You just didn’t. I’m sure if I had one day sat at their table, they wouldn’t have kicked me out. But they, along with everyone else in the room, would have looked at me funny. For the most part, I sat a table with the same two or three other people as well. Occasionally, one of us would sit elsewhere, or someone would join our table—in high school, teachers don’t always get to eat lunch, and most of them do it in their rooms while grading papers or preparing lessons. But no one else ever sat at the jock table, and not one of them ever sat anywhere else. Ever.
Eventually you find your clique. You establish a group of friends—comprised of those you’ve gathered along the way from middle school, high school, college, and jobs—and you build up a level of comfort, stability, and self-confidence. But in the meantime, those same odd feelings from middle school, high school, college, all come flooding back, and you're insecure, and scared, and jealous. Your friends are finding real jobs, are moving up in the world, are finding $1800 a month apartments in Washington DC and sipping red wine on their balconies after spending the day at the farmer’s and artist’s market. But you tell yourself, things will be different, things will change, when I get married and have a family. And they do. But not the way you'd thought. Those feelings are still there. While you're at home, coaxing a two-year-old to sleep, cuddling up in his toddler bed, singing “You Are My Sunshine,” your friends are gallivanting around Europe, or going to 11 o’clock shows at Slabtown, because you're only young once you know. So again, there it is. That indecision. That jealously. That fleeting though, did I choose the right path? Am I doing what I really want to do? I'm jealous of the friend with a steady job, a handsome husband, three beautiful kids and an amazing Pottery Barn House. Yet I'm jealous of the single bar-hopping-Europe-traveling friend. And here I am stuck in the middle. Thirty-something, and still unsure. In high school, I thought by now I'd have it together. I'd know what I was doing. I'd know what I wanted and I'd have it.
In high school, I had my ten-year plan mapped out: I was going to go to college—community college for two years (not four), and then transfer to a university to finish the last two years (not three). The summer after graduation (not two springs before), I’d get married and get a job teaching middle or high school Language Arts (accomplished one goal!). I’d work for two years (not one month) then get pregnant and have the baby the summer after my third year teaching (not the spring of my first year). Two years later (not four), I’d do it again, then in another two and another two—for a total of four kids. I’d continue teaching (not get laid off)—maybe full-time, maybe part-time—and in the summers, my family and I would operate an Ice Cream Truck company (not work retail, only to inadvertently spend the entire pay check on “sensible flats” and mom jeans that fit my increasingly large ass). I knew then that I wanted to be a teacher, to have a big family. Even now, with some of that accomplished, I still second-guess myself, thinking, This isn’t quite what I’d imagined…
The truth is, life is all high school—the insecurities, the cliques, the jealousy, the “What do I want to do when I grow up.” Adolescence isn't a period from age eleven to seventeen. It's your whole fucking life. And like they told us back then, Suck It Up, Learn From It, One Day You’ll Look Back At This And Laugh, and Get Ready for the Real World—whenever it may arrive.
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