Retainers

Also highly recommended: visting your high school alma mater. I've been out of HS ten years this coming May and just attended a football game for the first time in almost as long. I also went and saw the fall play. Now, I only recommend this kind of venture if you feel comfortable answering the inevitable questions ("So what are you doing now?" et al) should you run into anyone. In my own weird way, I was ready. So off I went.

Oddly, rather than reflect on how much I've grown and changed over the years, I was first awestruck by how much the old place looked and felt the same. There's new buildings and a ton of new faces, but it really was the same place. I almost felt like picking up my books and going to class. And then it hits me: I'm not the geeky queer with braces anymore. I'm a grown-up, a boy (the "full grown man" thing doesn't work - I still can't get stubble) with a decent job and his own place. And there's a world full of kids who don't know how easy it is - and thank God for that. Trying to comprehend that life only gets harder even as it gets better would have killed me. They should also know this: I never wore my retainer after they took off those braces. And you'd never know it by looking at my teeth.

Seriously, though, I couldn't help but reflect how little I've retained with me since my days as a barely closeted dork. A few friends, some CDs, and my diploma were about all I can think of. Fewer and fewer friends are left as time goes by. Most of the CDs I've traded in for better ones. My diploma will almost certainly be lost sometime in the next few moves. And deep down, I will always be that geeky queer with the braces.