Changing Spirits

I know that I've changed a lot in the years since high school. Less so than I will in the coming years, but more than I did while I was still in high school. But, it still astounds me whenever I spend time (or even just see) someone I went to high school with.

See, I lived in a community where it was small enough that you knew everyone in high school from when they'd been five. You'd gone through all the years of school together, you knew their first name, their last name, hell, you even know about that time when they were seven, and they squirted milk out their nose in the cafeteria during lunch. You knew everything. (Yeah, college was a big culture shock for me.)

When you're with people like that - for that period of time - you get to the point where you simply stop looking at them. That used to make me crazy because it meant people weren't realizing how much I'd changed my personality. But now I've come to realize that it works both ways. I ceased to see them as well.

This comes up because I spent last night with my two best friends from high school. I've grown very close to one since the time we were in school together. The other .... she's drifted away from us.

At a certain point in the evening, she was talking on her cell phone to someone, and she told him that she was "hanging with her two girlfriends from high school." Something about that phrase struck me. And I looked at her for the first time in years. She looks like the same person. And in some ways she is the same person. But I'm not.

I guess it was just another signpost on my lovely journey of "Welcome to Adulthood, Enjoy Your Stay in Reality."