Back to school

A few weeks ago I attended a reunion at my high school in Amersfoort. My high-school period was a time of mixed feelings: experiencing nasty treats of freaked pupils during my first year, but meeting many friends in consecutive years. Looking back my time at the Farel college overall was very nice.

Schools are strange places to be, they take such a decissive role in shaping our lives. During the first year I sometimes had sink in my shoes when entering the schoolyard. I looked up to the popular groups of smoking and swearing young people, often terrorizing the environment for those who did not fit their vision on reality. They led to a seperation of groups of young people, the popular and the not so popular. And so it turned that my best friend from primary school ended up in the popular club, and I ended up in the impopular club. To keep up his own reputation he then had to kick me during the terribly ritual week openings (I attended a Christian school), pretending that he did that as I reaction to me beating him. It made me want to stay at home.

In the second year it seemed that people gave up their ideas on belonging to a certain group. Their identies became increasingly constructed on rather individual characteristics, moving away from common group values which made it necessary to harass individuals that they could not identify with. It removed my fears and opened space for me to develop myself, while sticking to my own identity and not having to act cool anymore.

Slowly I started enjoying school. Slowly those who had been popular once, started to become impopular. I became secure, they remained uncertain. Then I started participating in school bodies, participating in a Bertolt Brecht play and organising school parties. All was I think very perfect than, except from one thing: I did not dare to come out. Where others started responding to their puberty needs, I was confused about my own feelings. There was no possible way of me coming out the closet, I did not experience school as a place to do so.

At the reunion I saw a lot of people that I didn't see for a long time. It was somehow a bit strange. It was nice to see some people again, but it was strange to experience that teachers -whom I experienced as having played an important role in my development - did not even remember your name anymore.

Below a picture with Kees - whom I see way too little!