There are a number of reasons to
write about Radnor High School. One of these is that I was looking through other noders'
bios and came across several who had referenced self-created nodes about their
schools, and I felt that mine was
left out.
But that's neither here nor there. Radnor High School is located in a well-to-do suburb outside
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania in the
United States. When I
graduated, it was ranked in the Top Ten High Schools or something like that in either the East Coast or the entire USA, but it's
irrelevant because you'll find that I'm quite
disillusioned about the whole deal.
Lots of people are disillusioned about lots of things, and school, particularly high school, is a traditional favorite thing about which to be disillusoined. (Still with me? Even through my intentionally
obtuse wording? Neat.) So why listen to my disillusionment?
Rrrr, good question. I like those. I also like having
conversations with
imagined respondants who don't,
technically,
exist at the time of writing.
Well, to
cut to the chase, it's because I realized something that people who have okay to middling-well
childhoods and are reasonably accepted
socially at various times during their high schooling (and viciously intense nerds during the other times of that schooling) all realize, or at least goes my current theory:
Once you graduate, you spend the rest of your life trying to get back what you lose when you leave home.
My father's an
alcoholic and my parents are permanently
separated but not
divorced, and I hated much of my childhood, so the situation is not nearly as
idyllic or happy-valley as the single statement above may appear to be. (end grain of salt)
But seriously--growing up, you have a home, a stable
income (allowance), a hopefully reasonably accepting and maybe even
comforting home life, various
activities, and every single
holiday revolves around you and the other children in the house. You get more days off than you ever will again--ever. (Dotcom IPO-er's during the early parts of last year need not read that last sentence, of course.)
Maybe that's the reason lots of people have children themselves--they want to give that feeling of
serenity and
security to somebody else, because they can't ever feel that way again.