The Architecture of Relationship

They say school prepares you for life, but I think it’s more accurate to say it reveals you to yourself. If that’s true, then high school was the first place I caught a glimpse of the person I was becoming—the kind of person I wanted to be.

I didn’t have the classic prelude. No pre-school painting, no story circles or nap mats. Social skills weren’t something I learned in a brightly coloured room—they were forged in the company of a younger friend up the road.

Infants school was a nightmare. I didn’t know what was happening, and I was scared. On the first day, when the headmistress tried to drag me away from my parents, I kicked her in the shins. Not out of spite—just panic. Everyone else seemed to be going along with what the system required, but in my four-year-old mind, I knew I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. It didn’t go well.

Primary school offered some reprieve, but even there, change came abruptly. At ten, we moved house. I didn’t have the tools to start over, not really. Six months of feeling invisible. Six months of learning, slowly, how to belong again.

University was even lonelier. The scale was too vast, the rhythms too disjointed. With a three-hour commute and different people in every class, I had no classmates to track with, no shared routines. Friends were scattered and I could go weeks without seeing someone familiar. Content was there but connection was elusive.

But high school. High school was different.

In those years, I found something solid. Friends who saw me, who welcomed me in. Moments that have echoed across five decades. We just marked our 50th anniversary. The reunion wasn’t a stroll through nostalgia—it was a genuine celebration of enduring affection. Some reunions are fraught with comparison or indifference, but for me, it was like stepping back into a room where the warmth never left.

So what did I learn in high school?

I learned how to be a friend. How to listen. How to laugh with people and not at them. How to make mistakes and own up to them. I learned how to respect others, even when I didn’t fully understand them. I learned to value connection over competition.

High school—often a time of awkwardness and identity crises for others—was a golden age for me. Having skipped pre-school, being confused and terrified in infants school, disoriented by a move in primary school, and lonely in university. The cards were stacked against high school being a positive experience. And yet—it was. Within the very structures I once mistrusted, I found joy, connection, and lifelong friendships.

I didn’t learn social skills early on—not in pre-school, not easily in primary school. And yet, I became someone who treasures relationships deeply, who sustains long friendships, who notices and cultivates the relational fabric of life. It shows that the “right start” isn’t always necessary. And it’s never too late to learn how to love well.

It sensitized me to the goodness of friendship. The joy of togetherness is made more poignant by the memory of what it’s like to be unseen.

What did I learn in high school? I learned that beginnings don’t determine endings, that beauty can grow in odd soil, that human connection often resists logic and explanation, and that joy can bloom where you least expect it.

High school taught me the architecture of relationship. And in the end, that has shaped everything that followed.

I never went to pre-school.
No stories, no glitter.
Just a friend up the road
and the quiet of not knowing
what I was missing.

Infants school was a blur of rules
I didn’t understand.
I didn’t fit—
not by choice,
but by instinct.

We moved when I was ten.
Six months of floating.
Trying to speak friendship
in a language I didn’t yet know.

University was lonelier still—
so many faces,
no familiar ones.
Weeks without a known name.

But high school—
high school was the grace
that came unannounced.
Friendships real and lasting.
Laughter that still echoes
fifty years on.

We gather still.
We like each other still.
Even across time,
across continents.

What did I learn?
How to build connection.
How to listen.
How to be kind without needing to win.