There’s an unusual component to the traditional high school yearbook. Typically, there exist tributes, highlight reels, teacher, staff and student profiles, clubs, organizations, and sports categories. Also contained is a competitively odd feature casting graduating classmates into “Best” or ”Most” roles. Personally, I never ‘got‘ this. My innate sensitivities could not/would not bear the thought of someone possibly being perceived as less than for not having ranked the innocuous title of “Class Chatterbox” or the heralded “Best Looking.”
And through the years, I’ve wondered about the young men and women of my senior class, now my middled-aged peers. Is a designation (in time) a (fair) representation of ourselves? In those tender teen years, often replete with overwhelming insecurity and self-deception, do “Most” or “Best” descriptions boost the way we truly see ourselves or how we believe others perceive us? Are definitive labels subconscious mandates, dictated by our peers, along with numerous other monikers assigned to us by supposedly well-meaning parents, teachers and authority figures? Are these titles the embodiment of a psychological contract we must inevitably fulfill...or do we get to choose?
Truthfully, I haven’t a clue. No answers, save the
From Medford, New Jersey
"JUST THE WAY YOU ARE"
by Cindy Weinstein