Tonight marks my bother’s junior year prom and I’ve been peskering him all week to take me as his date as he refuses to have one (smart kid).

Apparently, he also refuses to take his older sister as his date for reasons other than the obvious. He says I can’t shake my thang on the dance floor and he doesn’t want to be remembered as the freak who brought his sister who can’t dance to save her life on prom night.

My sixteen year old self would be rudely shocked to hear this, but in the past few days, I’ve been wishing to have my very own fairydust that would allow me to travel back in time and make me a highschool senior again.

To relive a time that made me feel so insignificant and unworthy is questionable to me even as I write this. In highschool, more than anything, I wanted to get out and be free. Find a charmer who’d sweep me off my feet and to prove to all the “Guys” (you know Guy, Guy as in Never Been Kissed Guy Guy) in the world that I was worthy.

Times have changed since then and I myself have changed but every once in awhile regrets are reawakened and daydreams are resurfaced.

I’ve always wanted the grand highschool experience and the grand highschool romance that everyone spoke of but it makes you wonder if it actually exists. Maybe I was too uptight and failed to throw myself in the moment. Maybe like Julianne in My Best friend’s Wedding I let the moment pass me by one too many times. I was too engulfed in waiting for my future to unfold that I lost the chance to drink, have fun and be merry.

Highschool, as people used to say is an artificial world that allows one to daydream and think that the world is as magical as Neverland.

A highschool project forced me to relive the good highschool times (oh yes, despite my cynicism, there were good times) and sigh over the things I failed to emjoy.

I missed out on simple things because I was such a cynic and overanalyzed things too much. What I would give to have those days again.

I’m missing my highschool life in a way that I haven’t before. It maybe a case of wanting what you no longer have or another way of realizing just how grown up I’ve become.

I truly should have no regrets because whatever it was that did or didn’t happen served its purpose in my life. It wasn’t a highschool experience for the movies but it’s the one that I get to keep. It’s my story to tell to my future grandkids. Of course, I would change a few parts: like winning the prom queen title and having everyone’s favorite jock as my prom king. But then that would devoid the authentic part of the story.

As I excitedly watch my brother get ready for his prom, I’m filled with joy because at the same time, I am reliving my own prom memories. Things may have changed and gadgets may have improved but I’ve realized that in the little world that we fondly call highschool, things have remained the same. There’s that one boy who every girl wakes up for every morning hoping today would be the day; the class brain everyone is annoyed with but can’t live without; the class clown who has his own stories to tell; the prom queen; the girl who wishes like hell that she was a size zero so she can be loved and the teacher who wishes that she would be the teacher of a great one someday.

The kids in highschool may have changed, but the characters haven’t. Isn’t it funny how all our fondest and funniest stores stem from this little wonderland? How all of us have something to say about it? It’s something that we all have in common because high school, no matter how it made you feel before is something that equates all of us, something that all of us share in one way or another.