High School and Being Me

Recently my High School had a decade long reunion (included the entire graduation class of the decade, not just the year I graduated). For about two weeks I REALLY thought I wanted to go. I thought how much fun it would be to hook up with old friends from back in the day. I romanticized my high school years: the athletic endeavors, the writing exercises, talking in N's (a secret language me and Monique) created in journalism, and hanging out with Jeffrey (my High School version of Langston). I even thought about how I managed to stay thin having eaten one honey bun, one package of vanilla cup cakes and three glasses of fruit punch for lunch daily my entire senior year. I even went thru my memory book, and pondered how much fun it could, or would be. At the end of the two weeks, I decided I didn't want to go. The biggest reason was I really didn't like HS when I was there, or BETTER YET I realized it after I graduated. It's not like it was horrible, I had a lot of fun, just undergrad, which was VASTLY different, I would also go back over and over and over again.
High School was JUST so awkward. While I was popular, I never felt quite comfortable in the public eye. I was very skinny, politically incorrectly speaking, Third World Hunger sans the bloated stomach skinny, with a very nice butt. Yes, as a friend says I come from a very nice ass family or I'm a distant relative of the Francis's.... I was good in sports. I was developing my current "winning" personality (that simple air of arrogance, hidden behind feigned innocence) quick sarcastic wit, and an overall, lifelong relationship with insecurity. Had a lot of friends, and I still talk to or email about eight of them. Two of them are life long friends who I call for advice and direction.... Three of us actually went from elementary school thru undergrad graduation ceremonies together. LaBaron, my neighbor thru the third grade, got the "biggest embarrassment" in undergrad during Freshman comp. We were to describe a childhood memory, and I wrote about how he and the "bad ass kids across the street" as oft described by my family, stomped and trampled my Weebles (wobble but they don't fall down) Doll House while my sister and I looked on out of our bedroom window.
But as I thought about the reunion, I remembered the mean things didn't like. One I call the cafeteria games. The cliques. I was a floater, I hung around the stoners, the kids who were "too old to be in HS", cheerleaders, nerds, the poor kids, the rich kids (which always amazes me, as no one was either rich or poor in our community). I know if it weren't for sports or the fact that 50% of us went from elementary to high school together, no one would probably ever talked to me or gotten to know me. It still holds the same now, most days, particularity during my lunch break with co-workers, my name is "I know you, you're that poet". It's cool, but at the same time, it feels high schoolishly awkward, and I immediately want to "shrink into the reddish mocha hues in my skin". I guess I get embarrassed from the attention/recognition. I watch people on the poetry scene and at my place of employment continue to play those same games (or assume roles). In the venue or during work meetings, all these fools need are: team-mates, equipment and the appropriate playing field. it's humorously painful to watch. I remember hating that game. Who's popular. Who's the smartest. Who's the cutest. Who's most athletic. Who's _________ (fill in the blank). Who's got the best goal for the quarter. Who spit fire that night.. BLAH BLAH BLAH.... And what's funnier is some try to re-create the "glory" days by poorly assuming a role that was never Theresa in the first place. Or they return with a vengeance, ala the nerd returning as the stud no one believed could look so good. But if you listen close, you can hear the nerd clawing thru his uncomfortably thin skin, dying to be revealed... (A manager in my building... You can see nerd from the implants in his hair to the overpriced metro-sexual ala Express for MEN dress shirts) I mean, why? Why is it necessary to recreate yourself for others? In that I am reminded that people are as neurotically insecure as I am. Just unable, unwilling, or maybe dying inside to admit it. I want to be revealed. It is how I keep myself grounded. "Monthly I wonder if I am being a fraud, but I know some are more fraudulent than me" a paraphrase from THE WAY WE WERE.
I think about this mostly because last night during poetry I watched a poet whom I respect, struggle with himself and his self image..... and I know he could really care less about what I think...... REALLY... He went thru the discomfort of little if any energy from the crowd, his perception of what the audience wanted, his own drunkenness ;0) his desire to perform new pieces, and being his OWN MAN, as he always is.... I mean he rambled incoherently at times, pushed past levels of inebriation I've known in any spoken word performance, cursed patrons (he didn't but it would appear that way) and after the 50th nigga, or 34th motherfckr, (I lost count after that) I thought he is always himself.... or is he. I know this man he is probably one of the most prolific characters in my lifetime, and a better writer... yet, even he gets lost at times.... and that hurts....
And in the midst of everything and everyone, fakeness, realness, all to realness, keeping it realness, I remember you can never keep it too real, unless you are being yourself...
thanks, fluke flawless for reminding me that it's okay to be me....