an ode to high school

So I've been afflicted by a moderate case of melancholy.
It started to show up when I sat down to email my old band teacher Mr. Rushing about some recommendation letters I asked him to write for me. But then I took a moment to be sincere with him. I haven't done that kind of thing in a while, so I was a bit out of practice; I think that may have played a part in triggering the melancholy. I've been a bit out of touch with people. My comfort zone is becoming much more comfortable - yet also much smaller. Back in high school, situations used to arise that called either for sincerity or total withdrawal from normal social interaction. I've never been the most social person, but I never wanted to miss out on what life has to offer, so I practiced sincerity. When a friendship became borderline "something more," sincerity. In order to have a more enjoyable lunch-time experience, I could spend it with Larry and Aaron discussing things close to our hearts - namely writing, poetry and art. Those were some great times - and the key was sincerity. It seems like going beyond your comfort level in the short run usually results in a more fulfilled life in the long run.
I got a lot of practice with sincerity my junior and senior years in high school. But lately, I've been out of practice. You might notice that I'm being pretty sincere right now - but it is a lot different when you are addressing a single person. As I'd imagine is true for most people, I find it very easy to pour my heart out onto a computer screen with the vague knowledge that someone on the other end might be reading my writing at some unknown point in time. But since leaving high school, and even, to my surprise, since taking a gap year from college, I've found myself deficient in interaction with people. Oh yes - I am doing a lot. I'm doing a ton of things that are really ME. Playing sax for a couple hours a day, playing guitar for a couple hours a day, reading a novel in Spanish, even making my own website that I'm beginning to feel rather proud of, though it still needs lots of work (tourofpoverty09.org). Yet all these things don't seem to amount to very much in the human experience when they are lacking that ingredient of unexpected, spontaneous, and sometimes even uncomfortable interaction with other people of all sorts.
Yes, my life is very comfortable. I know exactly what I'm going to do every weekend (visit my best friends at Spring Arbor University), and I know that I am going to greatly enjoy it. I know what I am going to do each day - and the things I do are going to be the things I enjoy most in life -- at least if they aren't, I have no one to blame except myself, since I have devoted this year to staying at home and accomplishing and doing those things which hold the greatest importance to me.

But let's get back to the melancholy I was experiencing. It started off with my sincerity towards my band teacher - about how much band had meant to me. Because once I got writing and thinking about it, I couldn't even imagine what my life might have been had my father not convinced me to join band back in the 6th grade, and if I hadn't had such a great band teacher. Half of my high school experience - no, perhaps much more - could be defined by things that came about entirely because of my role in the band and it's role in my life. Some of the best moments of my life, the experience of being truly looked up to, my best relationships, the indescribable feeling that sums up the dozens of fall nights spent at the football field or away games; that incredible feeling that results when the mind tries to remember the highest highs and lowest lows as if they occurred in a single moment... the infamous and always amazing band trips.. before even coming to my love of playing music.
All these moments.. all of them shared. Not a single memory stands on its own unless it was shared with someone. I think I've figured out what they say about that. It's not actually that you remember it longer because they also remember it and can remind you. You just remember it longer.
I look at high school and see -- high school was when you just went to school and life happened to you. You didn't have to build your own path up in front of yourself. The path was already constructed, and you could decorate it, or you could stray from it, but even if you strayed from it you could return to it, and even if you decided not to decorate it too much it was still somewhat interesting as it was. I strayed from it ... I found other paths.. I spent all my time in another town developing different relationships with different people than those who were set there for me by virtue of what school system I attended. Then some things happened, the other path I was blazing turned rough, and I came back to the path set up for me at Hillsdale High School. It didn't seem like much at the time - but at least it was there for me to return to. Not anymore. Meanwhile, back in my senior year of high school, I returned to high school from a crazy summer, not feeling like decorating my path at all. I just wanted to walk the remaining portion and be done with it. But then all these beautiful things kept happening to me. It's crazy. In high school all you have to do is go to school and life happens to you. I know "life" is not always a good thing. But unless you are literally starving or caught in the middle of a war or something (which it should be acknowledged many people in the world are), there is always good in life, and probably more than there might seem on first glance.
Now, though, my melancholy is initiated by an email to my old band teacher. It's deepened when I look at my shelves and see a gift I was given by a classmate during my senior year. Because I'm doing so many meaningful things right now - but they seem to mean very little when they are not being shared with anyone.
I mean, I share it with my best friends. And it's true - I am blessed to have a few truly good friends rather than a multitude of acquaintances. And not that anyone could replace the incredible friends I have right now. But I think that the human spirit is always seeking something more than what it already knows. And not an incremental increase, like "today I know 18 more Spanish words than yesterday" or "I am a little bit better of a musician." Those things are good. But there comes a point when the only thing that is truly new is a new person, or a new experience with an old person. Hanging out at a college and already knowing what you are going to talk about doesn't do it. We've gotta be making progress in our lives, or no matter how good they are they don't feel good. I took a year off to make progress in things that were important to me - music, Spanish, fighting poverty. But I kinda missed the human factor in all of that. You see, before I took a year off college, I thought that what I missed about high school were all the things I did in my spare time. I inexplicably had a massive amount of spare time in high school; probably explained by the fact that I never did homework at home. So I managed to find time to practice and become relatively good at tennis, art, guitar, saxophone, photography, writing, driving just because I could, and a hundred and one other things that I used to do - and enjoy - because of all that spare time I had to fill. I thought I missed doing all those things - and all those things were extremely enjoyable and even worthwhile on their own. But what I really missed was being able to fill all of my time outside of school with all of those things - yet still have life happen to me anyways. All of those things have a meaning when they come in addition to life, not as a substitute. They form an amazing addition and make an already good life better, but they can't make an already good life. It's time to give up the substitutes and give up the comfort and go reinvent that already good life... as well as just getting out there and letting it happen to me.

Wow. I never meant to pull a conclusion from this bit of writing, but I guess I just did. Hold me to it, please.

This is a really long rambling note and I didn't express some things I intended to express, and I expressed many that I had not intended to express. So if you read it know that, and I am going to arbitrarily end it now cause I don't have any direction to go with it. I'd say that in the whole thing there are maybe 3 or 4 sentences that I actually like. But if you read it, please feel free to let me know what your thoughts on those subjects are.