Being a Nobody and Learning Independence in High School

"I'm freeeeeeeee!"

When I was in high school, I was a 'nobody'. I know a lot of you might read this and say, "Oh, Kaleigh, that's terrible! You weren't a nobody!" And then there are the one or two of you who actually knew me in high school, and you're saying, "Ha, yeah you were."

I'm not being self-deprecating when I say I was a nobody. What I mean is that I was completely invisible to those who weren't my friends. Many times since graduation, I've been introduced to people I went to high school with through mutual friends and every outcome is the same. In the beginning, I'd press them with descriptions and details about who I was as they struggled to remember if my face was even a familiar one. Eventually they'd end on the same note, "Yeah...I think I remember you..." But they don't.
After about a year of this without one successful remembrance, I came to the conclusion that I had long expected was true: I was a nobody in high school. I was invisible. And to be honest, I am glad,

During my freshman year of high school, my family was stationed in Fairbanks, Alaska. I lived and went to school on base and if ever there was a time when I was a "typical" teenager, it was freshman year. My friends were my life as I'd sleep through the day and romp around the base with them in the afternoon and evenings. Enveloped in the final months of MySpace before Facebook eventually took us over, we spent our time seeing movies on base in large groups, playing video games, making videos together, walking the school grounds, making snack trips to the shoppette, perusing the BX, and scavenging the Alaskan forest and lakes. The thing is, it wasn't even just the same people either. Our 'group' extended throughout the whole school. I'd only known these people for two years but I was welcomed and claimed by them as one of their own. It was like a club that never seemed to have permanent members, yet everyone was so warm and friendly and accepting. That was the closest thing I've ever come to being popular or at least well-liked by all.

Those are their actual faces. Did I mention that people in Alaska look like this?

And then I moved to Kansas City...and everything went downhill pretty much immediately.
I think there is something to be said about school for military communities versus public schools. I will save that topic for another post, but let me just say for the sake of this one, that they are vastly different. In a very bad way.

I moved to KC-north the summer before my sophomore year. I was suffering from shock and probably depression which was fueled by the recent divorce of my mom and the man who raised me from ages seven to fourteen.
I missed my friends and our tight-knit community, I missed the normalcy of being in a stable and unbroken family. Not to mention, I was having a small identity crisis as I began realizing how uninteresting 'emo' and Hottopic had become to me.
In short, I had a lot going on.

Still, I approached high school in KC with hope. Unsurprisingly, hope never came.
I've talked a lot to friends and people I knew from school (I've actually made more friends from high school after graduation than I ever did while I was there. Kids are weird.) and they all seem to agree that their time at Staley was such a wonderful time and that they miss it so much. I used to look at these people and think, "Did we even go to the same school??" and I don't think they realized it, but we didn't. Our experiences were not of the same high school.

Fay and I on the last day of school, senior year. She is a perfect example of kind of knowing someone in high school and then becoming best friends after graduation. I love her to death!

I spent high school surviving both at home and at school. The first year and a half of Staley, I spent trying to make friends and while it was successful with a person or two, I was mostly ignored. I stayed in my room most nights after school, analyzing myself. What was it about me that these people didn't like? I'm funny, I'm nice, I think I'm an interesting person. (I don't think I'm ugly...). I think I'm a delight! Why don't people like me? To this day, I don't really know the answer, although I will say that I have a better insight about my peers.

I mean, really. Who wouldn't want to be friends with me??

Kids that age tend to be very exclusionary and unaccepting of intentional change in their social groups, so it could have been that. The thing is, I recognized then that these kids had known each other most of their lives so the groups had been set for quite a while. It was something I admired and spent a lot of my time at school observing. A big part of me wished I had that, but I knew I didn't and I wouldn't. So when the second half of junior year began, something changed. I stopped trying.

I know this will sound whiny, but I truly mean it. Letting go and accepting loneliness was the best thing I did in high school. It taught me that not everyone is going to like me or think I am interesting, and that's okay. It taught me how to be happy alone and independent. Not that I don't enjoy company! If you know me, I love talking to people and of course I love the friends I have. What I'm saying is, I think loneliness is healthy sometimes, especially for young people.

I laugh now because I think back to high school when my mom thought there must be something wrong that I didn't care to go out and do 'teenager things' or drive. She'd say, "Don't you want your independence? When I was your age, I couldn't wait to get out and have mine!" I think what she didn't realize is that I totally did. My independence was expressed in the hours I spent in my room alone, listening to music and creating, or exploring the forest behind my house and taking walks around the neighborhood. It was spent sitting alone in hallways before class in the morning, listening through the MGMT albums, dreaming up ways I could run away after graduation like Chris McCandless and travel the world.

One of my of the rooms I had in high school and by far my favorite from that time.

And I cherish those moments. I know a lot of people reading this might think it's sad or that I was missing out. I remember one of my biggest annoyances was when people would take pity on me at lunch and make it a charity show with their friends to invite me over to their table. "Are you alright? Why are you sitting alone? Here, come sit with us!" (I quickly realized my mistake to accept in the beginning as most of the time, I'd move to their table and not be included in conversation.) I think that says something about our discomfort and fear of being alone.
But sometimes, people just want to be alone. I know for me personally, I am someone who must be alone in order to recharge my batteries. I spend a lot of my time in social situations analyzing and understanding, on top of the over-thinking I already do, so I am exhausted by the end of it. Being alone gives me a chance to gather myself again.

Pensive senior pic...yayyy.

I will agree with one thing, however. I think I wouldn't mind going back, knowing what I know now. (Of course that is the catch!) I know I would have worked harder academically, but I think I would have been more forgiving to my peers. I would have been more forgiving of their behaviors, things that were said, things they stood for, because the truth is, in high school, no one knows a damn thing about anything. And we're all scared. We're all lost. We're all a little self-conscious. 

If I could go back, I would have given people more of a chance.

Still, I don't regret anything, and I am grateful for the friendships I have today because of it.

What about you guys? What was high school like for you? What was your first experience with independence?