What High School Really Taught Me

Describe something you learned in high school.

When I think about what I learned at high school, I do not first think of subjects or classrooms. I think of people. I think of friendship, and of the strange way those early bonds can work themselves into your life so deeply that you do not fully realise it at the time. You are just there together, day after day, moving through classes and corridors and sporting fields, talking nonsense, sharing bits of yourself without much ceremony, and somehow those years make their mark.

At school, friendship was simply part of the atmosphere. You saw the same people every day. You knew each other’s mannerisms, strengths, weak spots, private jokes. It was all so constant that it was easy to take for granted. I did not stop and think, this is important, this will last, this is shaping me. But it was. It was teaching me that relationships can settle into your life in a way that goes deep. They become part of your inner world.

My closest school friend has been working in Nepal, and I have not seen him for nearly two years. He will be back soon, which I am looking forward to. About eighteen months ago his father died while he was overseas. He could not get back for the funeral, but I was able to attend. It seemed only natural to go. That is one of the things friendship does over time. It asks something of you, and the asking does not feel burdensome. It simply feels right.

We had a school reunion just after he returned to Nepal, so he missed it. Reunions can be uncertain things. You go not quite knowing what will remain. Will the old ease still be there, or will everyone feel unfamiliar? So many years have passed. Lives have taken shape. Faces have changed. But when I was there, speaking with people I had known so long ago, I felt again that old recognition. Not in some sentimental way, but in a steadier one. I was genuinely glad to see them. Glad that the thread had not broken. Glad, too, to feel proud that we had shared that part of life together.

I think that may be what high school taught me more than anything else. Not just that community shapes people, though it certainly does. It is more that some relationships, formed almost without your noticing, go on living in you. They remain. They may lie quiet for a while, dormant under the years and distances and busyness of adult life, but they are still there. And when they stir again, you realise they have been shaping you all along.

Daily writing prompt

Describe something you learned in high school.

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