JUST BEFORE GRADUATING COLLEGE, you'll have a dream.
You are walking back from meeting for worship, like Quaker school days. Only instead of going back and forth between the school campuses, you'll be walking on a street near your house. Instead of the few houses normally on that street, though, the street is surrounded by many connected buildings, like a city or town center.
In addition to your Quaker school classmates, everyone you know was walking back with you. College professors. Ms. B. All sorts of other people whose faces you can't pick out. Still, you feel the camaraderie. They all walk with you on the path that continued onward towards life. Not to sound deep or anything. Who knows what path that will be.
WILL YOU BECOME a published author? Throughout the process of working on this book, you've learned that sometimes, simply being in the story is enough. Writing brings back memories, and it's fun to share with others. To collect feedback, compare stories, and read comments. I guess I'm already published, in a sense. Even if it's only for Wattpad, or for future nieces and nephews and grandchildren, these stories are here to stay.
And there is still so much to learn!
Life has a funny way of coming full circle. It moves forward in ways you wouldn't always expect, but as life sometimes does, it will come together in a way that fits perfectly. It will be the life that's right for you.
And then, when you get to some of these places in life, you're surprised to see that many of them are the same as in the past. These places will also shape you in some form or another.
For example. As you drive past the Quaker school, you will be flooded with memories. And you'll do a lot of it, too, because your grandparents? They'll have found another place to live, and it's at Penn's Woods, of all places. Life will come full circle once again.
You'll look to see if anything is going on at your old school when you visit their house. One night, you'll be driving by when the upper school is performing Madagascar (you'll be so glad you didn't do that musical), but otherwise, it'll be quiet. The High Swings are gone, replaced by an outdoor classroom. There is still a tire swing hanging from the same bars, but the swing itself is new---and blue. The hill where you used to sit in middle school is quiet and seems much less steep than it used to, and the hole that students diligently worked to carve out in the fourth grade seems patched up with grass. The kindergarten room where you learned about Fuzzy Wuzzy is gone entirely, replaced by more modern classrooms. Life goes on there without you and your classmates, many of whom are now living far from home or even in the military, like Ryan. I guess having a business didn't pan out for long.
Other places change too. Your old preschool is now a Montessori school after the former staff refused the church's demands of higher payment, and nobody ever seems to attend. The store with the Invisible Fence sign is now a barber shop, and the purple house that was visible to you on the swing set that you liked to believe belonged to an old woman who tended to a garden and set out birdfeeders is now a former home care business, which currently sits empty. Your senior year house at college has been converted to housing for adult students with kids. Your room there probably no longer exists.
But you won't necessarily miss the love drama. Not that that love drama won't follow you. Remember that one day when you saw Ben perform at your sister's karate event, and as they walked out the side door of the auditorium, the narrator in your head was going "And then, forever, they walked though the door and out of her life!" But then that wasn't true, and you talked in college after an emailing spree, and then they friend-dumped you, and then you knew it was over for real this time? Well, not true again, because... well, it just seems like some things don't like to stay in the past.
Oh yeah. Did I mention that Ben is a girl?
Those dreams you had about them turning into girls years ago may have had validity. When the idea of being transgender starts to become present in the cultural discussion, Ben will realize that is how they are most comfortable: as a female. Whether you liked them or not, you will no longer be compatible. Now that that's gone, what other shockers are there? Not many. It was a good story, and now it had come to a close. Perhaps.
Later on, it will be a shock to see your high school close. Evidently, other people thought the same way as you did---although women from years past treasured their time there. 2020-2021 will be the last year in operation. No more Fox Days, graduations in hats, room inspections, or formal lunches will take place there. Nobody will ever live in your single room again, the room where you read your favorite books in downtime and watched Peter Pan.
That said, you'll still revisit some things from the past. It will surprise you when you visit the Bikini Bottom forums and you'll see that it finally may be approaching death. Most of the members who were active during your second stint there are no longer active, and the ones who are there seem too young for you to connect toâfor real this time, you realized that you probably won't be back. It seems that the attitudes of the teen boys and the uprisings contributed to some people's leaving; some of your friends, Katrina included, stopped logging off weeks after you. It's a sobering thought of how quickly time passes, and you'll be reminded to take advantage of the good old days before you realize you're currently in them.
You won't be able to pick up that snazzy bottle of Snickers milk and not remember Lieutenant Fred and his snack reviews on the blogs there. He'd probably give the packaging a higher score than the taste. In fact, you saw him the other day, posting a new meme video on his YouTube channel.
Still, you have to give it props. The site became HUGE and lasted well past most internet forums of the type. But look: in the future, there's Reddit: a (sometimes) wonderful place that also comes with holiday gift exchanges! Wait until you try the astronaut ice cream that your secret Santa sends you.
But you can never truly escape the past. It shapes you and the stories that you have to tell. And there are memories that last a lifetime. You won't have your Pocono house anymore, but you'll remember the good times. The same is true for your Dunst Drive house, your school, and even some friends who randomly decide they don't even want to be Facebook friends anymore.
And the dreams. Even now, many of your dreams take you to a different world with different versions of places you love. They often function as "roadtrips," or several different places in the course of a dream. There are versions of many places, often ones that have stayed since childhood. Peppercorn Bend. Ms. B's house (often those two are in the same neighborhood in dreamland). My single dorm room in the old house. The house that has weird goings-on in your current neighborhood. Dunst Drive (in one dream, it was transformed into a mansion).
But let's think about the "wills," the part of the story you haven't gotten to yet. If only we could see to the future, the one where your Bookstagram really starts getting followers and some friends. If only you could see the friends you'll make, the place you'll finally live on your own, and the cool people you'll meet. I wish I could tell you more. Alas, life definitely belongs to the "mystery" genre. At least figuring things out can be exciting.
You will love the thriller genre. When you start your book blog (you will get a few before finding an outlet that works for you), you and your followers will take particular joy in reviewing suspenseful books, especially of the domestic variety. Whenever you drive by that run-down motel with the house on the hill, you'll think back to your high school days. You'll recall how much farther you've gotten in the genre, which you suppose you owe to your music class and Psycho.
But don't forget to keep looking for stories. After all, if you stopped looking at what you thought would be the only good points in your life, you wouldn't know about the wonderful things happening now! Heck, even the bad times come with stories. I mean, you'll never forget Kayla, no matter how hard you try. At least it makes a good story.
Never, never, never stop writing. Notice everything. Don't wait for the bad stuff to disappear; look for the things you'll want to remember. There will be plenty of those things. Believe it or not.
And that means you, dear reader. Soon enough, you'll be writing about adult life, too. Speaking of which...
THE WHERE ARE THEY NOW? PORTIONÂ BECAUSE I JUST SAW THE ARTHUR FINALE AND IT GOT ME TO THINKING ABOUT HOW PEOPLE DON'T ALWAYS END UP WHERE YOU'D THINK BUT SOMETIMES THEY DO
(To be deleted if there is controversy. Enjoy while it lasts!)
As of March 2022:
Christine: Business person living in our nearest major city. Still writes poetry occasionally and even came across an old Furby story back in 2016. Despite her complaints of me getting the better autographs in our yearbooks just before graduation, she is doing better than me socially, happily dating her longtime boyfriend, It #5 (or 6 or 7 or 8) for several years now. I'm sure they'll marry eventually. (Come to think of it, I don't think ANYONE in the class of 2008 is married yet, at least not the ones that I know of that post on Facebook.) She is also proof dreams can come true---she met her 7th grade celebrity crush in Italy at some point.
Ally: Had a Facebook profile at some point. No longer. For that matter, I can't find any evidence of her or her sister. Hopefully they are not dead somewhere.
Kelly: Working at a law office of some sort, living with her boyfriend and a cranky cat that I think is Daisy reincarnated. If that's the case, I wonder when her own personality will do a complete 180?
Emily: Somehow a college sophomore studying social work and taking neuroscience classes. I'll take "things I really didn't expect" for $2000, Alex.
Joe: Happily married to the field hockey goalie's sister. They had a son recently, and Joe himself recently got promoted at the same college, so hopefully there will be many more sports games to come that I can go to to visit.
Ben: Identifying as female/non-binary (I'll take things I REALLY didn't expect for $10,000, Alex) near a large city as a game designer. We still talk every year or so during a virtual charity event the company puts on, but they don't know it. We've all moved on by now---it's just fun to comment in the chat box (Don't worry. I no longer proclaim my love for people in chat boxes, and I won't now anymore anyway, as they've just changed jobs and my virtual charity plans have been wiped from the face of the earth), and my past eighth-grade self couldn't be happier. I had to please her somehow. She was getting kind of impatient.
Tim: Living with, allegedly, a new girlfriend who has a son---despite how judgmental his father is, neither of his parents seem to mind. Their profile photos no longer feature each other, though, so I was suspicious for a bit. Stand by for further details.
Stephanie: Happily engaged to someone who may or may not be from college. Spends lots of her time fostering kittens.
Danielle: Same place as always as far as I'm concerned. Still in Chicago; same apartment, different dog. Some good things never change.
Roger: For a guy I knew not even 7 days, I have a lot to say about him. Completely unrecognizable to me now, except in the eyeballs, and frankly still pretty handsome. Losing the grandpa glasses helped. He has since starred in another Bye Bye Birdie production, I believe, as one of the teenagers. According to Facebook he is/was dating a girl and was a paramedic for a while (Actually, job-wise he's a med student currently).
At one point he had a "pride" profile frame, but as he only appears to date girls I can assume either bisexual or an ally. Or asexual, if said photo girl wasn't a date. One of these days, I will be interested in straight people. One day.
But enough of my allegoric ramblings. Go out and discover your own story.