High school confidential

I had dinner tonight with a friend at my favorite Greek restaurant - Maria's Taverna on Denman Street. They have tzatziki to die for, greek salad that no one can resist, and amazing spanakopita. Every time I go there, I love the food, the atmosphere, the service.

But tonight the friend I was with was thinking over his life, about where he'd been, what he'd done, and where he was going to go from here - maybe who he was going to be when he grew up (although he's almost 50).

And in the end, a lot of the things he was thinking about went back as far as high school. A lot of the things he worried about, a lot of the things he did every single week, a lot of the things that made his life uncomfortable or unhappy, went back to high school.

I wonder for how many of us that's true?

Maybe those of us who had perfect high school years spend much of our lives trying to get back there, spend our lives feeling nostalgic about those years. And if we do that - do we ever move on to become adults? It must be difficult.

And then there are people like me who really didn't enjoy being teenagers. In fact, I hated being a teenager - I can't think of a single time that I enjoyed. I wasn't a part of the in crowd, I was bored at school, I was unhappy at home.

And so I think, somehow, that it was easier for me to move on from those years. I don't spend a lot of time remembering those years, don't think of them good or bad, except to occasionally think that the hardest thing my mother ever did was NOT to kill me as a teenager, because I deserved it.

I'm happy that I had those tough years then. I think it makes these years easier and less burdened with the past. And much better. Because I'm not trying to get to some perfect life I once lived - I'm just enjoying this moment without trying to live up to those so-called best years of my life.

Kate