I remember standing outside my childhood home two years ago, trying desperately to turn some of the anxiety I felt about my transition to college into excitement. I was cramming unnecessary amounts of clothing into the back of my family’s Suburban (or rather, guilting every other member of the Winch family tree into doing the heavy lifting on the grounds that I was “moving far, far away”). While most of the things (realistically, about 30 percent) I had packed were “absolute essentials,” I allowed myself to bring one box of nostalgic items from high school that would remind me of a sweeter, simpler time. I even brought my high school yearbooks — all four of them. Aggressive.
Even though I undoubtedly looked super hot with experimental dreads and braces at age 16, in the past few years I’ve realized that I haven’t thought back about those dusty old times. Not even for a good laugh.
I can’t help but wonder why I have forsaken my high school self so insistently when, upon leaving my home to start my new Dartmouth experience, I didn’t think things could get much better than they had been for the past four years. And it was an easy thing to think. For some of us, high school was a time when friendships had long histories, boyfriends didn’t care if you were good at pong and balancing six clubs with a varsity sport and AP classes seemed like child’s play. How could things possibly get better?
My mother used to tell me I was a big fish in a small pond. For a while, the saying just seemed like a weird, metaphorical way of making me feel better about myself until I realized how readily it applied to my high school existence. I grew up in a town that was three square miles and went to public school with the same 100 kids, from diapers to diplomas. That is a small pond. Excruciatingly small, actually.
As for the big fish part, it’s fairly easy to be popular in a group of friends you’ve had since you were two years old. Even if they don’t particularly like you, it’s not like they have any viable alternative “fish” to serve as your replacement. Quite literally knowing everyone and their mother can certainly become tiresome ... particularly if you happen to date their sons. But it draws you into a network of people who have seen you grow up and will (hopefully) support you as you get older. To put it in numerical terms, how can 18 years of friendship with people at home possibly compare with just four short years here?
Dartmouth kids are smart. Hayley and I know that. Everyone knows that. Academically speaking, we’re two little fish surrounded by the academic sharks of our generation. It would be pompous, however, to think that Dartmouth students floated through high school academics on a cloud of straight-As while their fellow students slaved away over a burning textbook to match our natural genius.
The rigorous course loads and short terms at Dartmouth make it a challenge even for those of us who skated through high school. No matter how hard we drag our heels, the information learned in classes doesn’t slow down. Plus, you’re left with disgusting feet. Remember when we covered a book in a month instead of a week?
Which brings us back to Amanda’s dreadlocks and braces thing. While that might not have been a stellar hair and teeth moment, the years that would follow were some of the best for the bod. Now, we would like to preface this section by saying that we are both proud NARPs who still take the time to exercise and stay healthy. But there was a time when we weren’t NARPs, and we didn’t have to bribe ourselves with a Tender Queso at the Hop to put in 20 percent effort on the elliptical for half an hour. That time was, you guessed it, high school.
Though club sports are a great outlet for those of us unwilling to let go of our varsity days — and an excuse to wear athletic clothes everywhere – students that aren’t quite Division I caliber may have a harder time staying in tip-top shape.
“I totally peaked in high school,” people say jokingly while cramming for a midterm or waiting for that guy from last night to text them back. But we can’t help wondering if we are the only ones who realize that the thought is not so silly, especially when trying to squeeze into our high school jeans or trying to remember a time when we could say, “Never have I ever pulled an all-nighter for schoolwork.”
No? Just us? Well then, maybe you’re all lying to yourselves. Or maybe you just had a rough go of it in high school. Regardless, at least for us, there was a lot of comfort in the familiarity and success that those four years provided.
College can be really scary, and made scarier by the fact that you don’t always know who to talk to about your fears. That being said, we would never go back. It was truly a sweeter and simpler time, but college has been a time to grow up, to order 2 a.m. pizza and to take risks. It’s a time for making mistakes, figuring out what works and what doesn’t and learning. Learning cool, job-oriented stuff for sure, but learning even more about yourself. Bearing that in mind, we have decided we haven’t plateaued just yet. We have a little farther to climb before we reach our peak.
