"It is better to be beautiful than to be good. But...
it is better to be good than to be ugly."
(Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright)
When I
think back on my High School years, I often cringe. I generally assume it's
that way for most of us. As a product of 1960s breeding, I spent the end of the
1970s and the beginning of the 1980s trapped inside the walls of Strathroy
District Collegiate Institute. Located deep in southern Ontario , Canada
I suppose
the most surprising part of this social media experience is the way our
memories of how things, and people, were back then stands in contrast with who
they are now. It can be scary to come across the girl you dated in grade 9 on
Facebook. An addition of a husband and three kids is one thing but my God, what
happened to her? How did she get so old and so tired looking? She is the same
age as me but she looks more like a grandparent than my peer. I'm that old
myself but I certainly don't look the part. Maybe I'm blessed with outstanding
genes but that's beside the point. She is not alone in her state of decay.
Almost every single person I knew back in high school has turned up on social
media. Almost every single one of them looked half a bullet away from rigor mortis.
It's difficult to be humble when the best looking guy from school now weighs 320
pounds and has pock marks the size of gumballs all over his face. What a shame.
I used to sit back in English class and watch him emote sexy. I had it bad for
him which is, apparently, no longer a problem. Whatever happened to him, it
wasn't merciful. It seems to have worked out this way for almost everyone I
knew back when. I got better looking with age and they all seem to have fallen into
a vat of butt fucking ugly. I still shake my head when I come across one of
them.
"The beautiful has but one type, the ugly has a
thousand."
(Victor Hugo, French poet)
There are
exceptions to every rule. For the most part however, this new standard,
whatever happened, is more the rule than the exception.
There are a few stray exclusions that I have come across. One of my closest
friends in high school now has children older than when we once knew each
other. She still looks good for being a grandmother. There is our mutual
friend. I had no idea he was gay back in the day. He looks the same, if you ask
me. One of the guys I had gay experiences with (during that time) added me to
his Facebook one day around a year ago. He sure looked good, I have to tell you
the truth. Unfortunately while the exterior was intact, something stupid his
way came and seems it to have settled in to stay. I deleted him a few months
ago when he started posting homophobic comments on his timeline. I guess it's
true that the louder they scream, the harder they suck. It must be embarrassing
to look that good and be so ugly on the inside. The same cannot be said for
most of my former classmates. It's hard for me to believe just how different
reality is from how I thought it to be. I spent years punishing myself for not
being better like them when the very people I was emulating in my head were big
losers just like me. I had no idea that the aging process could do such harm to
so many. Even the teachers I once idealized, or hated (it all depends on the
class they taught), met up with the same infusion of erosion.
A few years
ago, I attended my nephew Matthew's graduation at the new high school, just out
on the edge of town. SDCI is no longer, replaced by a seniors facility. The
grounds are the same but the entire scope of my teen years has been levelled
and removed. It's weird to drive by it now. The change is so noticeable. I felt
exactly the same when I saw one of my music teachers at Matt's graduation. It's
not that he was some regal lion back when I hated going to his classes but
whatever he has been eating has not done him much good. In the day, I was
intimidated by him. I may have even been frightened of him at some point, I am
unsure. Now, before me stood a mockery of that man. I had no idea how short he
turned out to be. I had no idea that grey hair was a fashion statement. I kept
forgetting that he was well over 60 years old now. I kept flashing back to when
he was my instructor, not just the decrepit fat pig that stood before me. When
our eyes met that day, I looked him up and down and then I laughed right in his
face. I have to admit it was poetic justice. I have to admit it made me feel pleasure
that he looked so bad. I have to admit the entire experience made me feel
rather good about myself. Later on, when I saw him conducting the orchestra
during the program, I felt like Nelson Muntz from The Simpsons. I had to contain myself from yelling out "Ha!
Ha!"
There was
the lesbian priest who somehow found a way to make me feel like a heathen. She managed
to transform from a lovely young woman into a really obese ugly old man, and
all without surgery. Blocked. There was the buddy of mine who accepted my
friend request, then deleted me less than an hour later. I can't help it that
he doesn't like "the gays." The "gays" don't like bald
skinny men who look 15 years older than they should. Blocked. After a few days
of reminiscing, the girl I played euchre with for three years during my
incarceration at SDCI asked me for money. I should have known that look when I
first saw her profile picture. She had been quite the looker in her day but now
she seemed more like a crackhead than anything remotely like she used to.
Blocked.
One woman accused me of not returning her calls after I had
sex with her in grade 12. For the record, I have never taken my tugboat to tuna
town. Blocked. One old pal used to park his bike at our house and walk each
morning with me to school. We were teammates on the swim club for years. The
years had not been kind to him. Honestly, he looked, in his photo, like a
cancer patient at the end of treatment. For a Canadian, he sure likes his
Donald Trump. Blocked. There are so many faces, so many memories and yet I fear
they are for naught. Apparently, you can't go home again because the house is
dishevelled and really, really wretched. All in all, I have come out of the
experiences feeling quite pleased with myself and who I turned out to be as a
person. Don't think I don't realize how lucky I am that at this point in my
life, I haven't turned.
"Never pick a fight with an ugly person, they've got
nothing to lose."
(Robin Williams, American comedian)
Often, I
look back on my life with a sense of regret and shame. The things I did as a
young man are not the things of legend. In the greatest sense, they left scars
and not just for me it would seem. The ripples in the water make splashes at
the shore. Time has gone by and the world changes, even if we believe that it
won't. Some people are stuck in the pain. Some move on, never to look upon it
again. I prefer to witness these experiences and attempt to learn the lesson
from them that I am supposed to. I pay attention so that I might see clearly. I
am simply an observer, a reporter who relays his perceptions. Don't shoot the
messenger. I can't help it that you look like that.
I have
tried to touch base with my past and I have tried to rekindle many of the
relationships that were once successful for me. I don't think people like to
visit yesterday let alone relive it more than a quarter of a century later.
With the noted exceptions, I am no longer friends with anyone I knew in high
school. It is sort of sad, in a way. I think it is fascinating to explore a
person you knew so long ago. Most people just aren't interested in such silly
things. Any interaction is for amusement and little else these days. While I
try to be modest, my self-assurance tells me I am better just for the trying.
Any lesson I might learn from all this is lost on me. I'm not sure there is a
clear one to be found. I can only assume that I am not alone in all this. I
have to wonder why so many people I once knew turned out the way they did. I
could venture a guess and say that when you are ugly inside, it shows through
on the outside. You can't go back but you can carry it with you and let it
weigh you down. There is a reason I haven't had anything to do with most of
these people since high school. There is a reason I don't have anything to do
with them now. I am proud of the man I have become and I don't need a bunch of
miserable uglies reminding me of the asshole I once was.
"Everything is not black-and-white. I'm really
interested in the gray area - not justifying it, not glorifying it, not
condoning it, but at least having people see there's a genesis for every event
in our lives. There's some divine order to it, whether it's ugly or
beautiful."
(Isaiah Washington, American actor)
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