Orientation to Life (most cliche title ever!)

It's a given, whenever you start a new chapter in life you go through orientation. Be it school or work, you will spend at least one day looking lost, playing ice breakers, reading up on rules and guidelines and watching a video on sexual harassment (ideally made in 1985, but only if you're lucky). You will also be introduced to anyone who walks within 5 feet of you and almost certainly will become friends with at least one of those people...or friendly at least. Everyone always complains about orientations, how hokey they are, how unnecessary they are, but you always leave them with at least one compadre...even if that compadre is the person you spent the day with in the back of the room complaining about how everyone else sucks.

But what happens when your new chapter isn't new at all, but rather a return to an old chapter. There's no orientation for that. I'm now faced with the challenge of either making new friends on my own, or rekindling old friendships with people I haven't talked to in years, neither of which will be easy.

While I returned home every summer during college, I didn't live at my house most of the time. My summers were spent working. I didn't have any summer vacations during college, save for 3 days around the Fourth of July aka "My grandmothers 90th birthday party" (Nana, 92, was actually born on Christmas Eve). My summer weekends were spent working. My days and nights, were often spent working. If I wasn't working I was in the dorms at work socializing with only my work friends. I guess in a way it was an alcohol fueled company town. We worked, ate, socialized and slept in the same place, leaving little time for the outside world.

Lies, there was plenty of time for the outside world but I used it as an excuse to further ignore my friends from home. Or what was left of them, at least. I had left the public school system in our town after 8th grade. I firmly believed I was better than everyone else and destined for bigger and better things than my classmates. Quite frankly, I was a douche. What few friends I had left in town after 8th grade I cut off as soon as I went to private school.

While I made great friends in high school, I again wasn't too great with keeping in touch with them after graduation. The fact that we were spread across the country to college was made even more difficult that when we came home for breaks, we all went home to different towns, states and even countries. Boarding school does that. Even as a day student I found myself letting friendships with people towns over lag.

As a result I find myself back home with no real friend base to tap into. I have some friends from work, a friend from college, a friend from high school, two friends from elementary school (who honestly also went to high school with me) and my parents (always enjoyable, no lie). Since I have a strict "no mixing of friend groups" rule, they all stay separate. I miss the giant groups of friends that I grew used to in college.

It's impossible to avoid the inevitable now that I'm home, however. I'm running into people from my past and now that we've all matured, it seems like we could have been great friends. It started this summer when I ran into a friend from middle school at work. He was working at the day camp on campus and I was doing my usual indentured servitude. We walked next to each other in silence for awhile before acknowledging each other, then somehow went from strained conversation to the challenge of a dance off. I walked away from the conversation laughing and spent the rest of the summer trying to cross paths with him and other former classmates of mine who also worked at the camp again. There was something about the conversation that was new and fresh yet comfortable.

Various run ins at bars and shops have occurred between then and now, but last week I was again reminded of the fact that I am home and that I have a life here that I had left behind. OMP and I were, as we typically do, spending Saturday night at a Princeton Basketball game. Typically we sit in the last row of the seats, far away from the action and from everyone else. This allows us to stretch out, make sarcastic comments, and crack up hysterically without being judged when the Chick Fil A cow dances. We've sat there my whole life, sometimes with people around us, most often with just our family. It's my little happy place.

At this recent Saturday night game, however, Princeton was playing then ranked Cornell, leading to an almost packed house. As we cramped ourselves into our seats I looked down the row to see that seated next to OMP's friends were 5 or 6 of guys I knew (and had crushes on) in middle school. While we didn't make eye contact on the first glance, I couldn't resist a second glance. I was caught, I made eye contact with one of them. We exchanged an "oh hey....I remember you" stare before snapping our heads forward to watch the game. I snuck a few more glances over throughout the night, sometimes getting away with it, sometimes getting caught. Suddenly it was 8th grade me sitting in that seat, hoping that one of them would have the nerve to say hi to me because 10 years later I certainly didn't.

Part of me was nervous because when I had last left them they were the cool kids in school. No matter how much you try and say you don't conform to social stereotypes, you know who the cool kids were, and you know that you weren't a part of them. Ten years later, looking at them, I still saw the cool kids. Mostly I didn't want to say hi because what did I have to say. 10 years later I had left the school, alienated everyone because I was destined for greatness (which don't get me wrong, I still totally am). I know I've done great things, but how does that measure up to them. Have I done better things than them? I know nothing about them now. In all likelyhood, they have jobs. It doesn't matter if they went to college or what type of job they have. They most likely have one, I do not. Still I kept glancing, hoping that one would instigate that fresh yet comfortable conversation that I still look for.

Unfortunately with 3 minutes left in the game I had to leave to catch a train to Hoboken for a friend's party. OMP, my ride to the train station, stood up and announced to his friends (and unknowingly to my 8th grade crushes) "Well! I have to get Marianna to a party now!" 8th grade me died a little inside. SOOOOOOO UNCOOL, DAD! Any chance that they didn't recognize me ended right there when their heads snapped to attention. Yep, Marianna is just as uncool as she was in middle school, spread the word. 23 and her dad is taking her to parties.

It shouldn't be this scary to get back in touch with old friends. The fact of the matter is...they do exactly the same things I like to do. They work at the same place I work, they go to the same bars I go to....they even go to Princeton Basketball games. I have tried for years to get high school and college friends to go to basketball games with me, often to no avail.

I've spent numerous evenings with my college roommate getting to know her grad school friends. They're all great, I enjoy them, but they're her friends, they're each others friends. My mom is convinced that I should take a plate of cookies to the guys across the street and that will be the magic key to friendship. They're nice guys, but they're each others friends...and they each have their own friends. I don't need new friends, I'll get those later in life. I need my old friends.