Colours seen by candelight
Will not look the same by day.
-Elizabeth Barrett Browning
When I was 17, a senior in high school and ready to graduate, I was very eager to set sail and go. As for many, high school was a very traumatic time for me. I had challenges to face at home and challenges to face at school. I had to avoid bullies that would follow me home, and I had many disagreements with my parents. I guess as with all teenagers I began to embrace my own vision of the world and shun the one my parents tried to give me.
I took refuge in being friendly, making friends, and sharing warmth with others; but because I was trapped in my head with intense feelings of loneliness, I was unaware of the many lives I’d touched. I had a few good friends, but I didn’t realize just how much they thought of me until many years later while attending my 30-year high school reunion. After all the warm hugs, friendly smiles and recognition of me by people I hardly remembered, I realized that while I was reaching out to others in high school, they were deeply affected and may have reached out to me as well. I was constantly asked, “Where have you been in so many years?” Also, a dear friend I left behind so long ago embraced me and said, “Please don’t leave me again.”
Along with the others I left behind, I left myself behind. I thought I left behind a person who was not popular, who was not liked, and maybe had a handful of friends. Boy was I wrong! I felt like the guy in It’s a Wonderful Life , who was given the chance to see what life would have been without him, only to discover that the many people affected by him would have perished in one way or another. It felt very good to be reminded that I’ve had a wonderful life and that those I’ve encountered have been deeply touched by me. I discovered also that I have been deeply touched by them.
I lived across the street from a very cute boy and his very cute surfer friends. Sometimes we would speak. I was very close to his mother, and to my surprise, they remembered me! Those very same surfer dudes liked me. I wish I hadn’t been so shy. I would have been the only black surfer girl on the street. I don’t know if my parents could have coped with me being exposed to the turbulent waves of Southern California, however. This Lisa that I left behind I soon began to realize has been hanging ten in an alternate reality.
I remember belonging to the Asian Club, the Iranian Club, the International Club, and the choir. I was like a butterfly floating and touching everything and everyone. I couldn’t stop smiling. And now I can’t forget the good things that happened to me even in the midst of some bad things. So that 17-year-old girl is accompanying me now, along with her memories and her personality.
The following Monday after the reunion, I plummeted. I’ve gotten older, a little heavier, and a little more self-conscious, it seems. I need to work out, go on a diet, get a better career, and on and on. Now, it is the Monday after that, and I have embraced the person that I have become, and reunited with the “me” I left behind. I am embracing what I’ve become and realize that I have a whole lifetime to accomplish the things I have yet to achieve.
I realize that I saw myself and others through the night lit dimly by candlelight; and now by the light of a day lit with sunshine, I see things more clearly. So, I am embracing the people I left behind and hope we find opportunities to celebrate together much sooner than the next high school reunion.
