It's Never Over: Ira Glass and Me

Last Monday, Abby and Farrah gave This American Life with Ira Glass "two enthusiastic thumbs up." I had listened to the show before but wasn't an avid fan like Siskel and Ebert here were. This week's theme "It's Never Over," I found, was about a topic that eerily hit close to home - how we think that we are over a particular life event, but when our memories are triggered, all those old feelings (of bitterness, sadness, ebullient joy) are revived.

Was it a strange coincidence that I started to write about my experiences at Carlisle School just this week and had reconnected with many of my old friends via blog? Wasn't it fundamentally weird how Shlee, in one of his characteristic random outbursts during lecture, told me "to quit living in the past and accept [my] current life for what it was?" I had given him my signature look of disgust and distaste to let him know that I thought he was severely whacked.

Of course, in light of this week's This American Life, I realize that Shlee may have a point. Did I dwell on the past? Was Carlisle School my peak, a time when I was at the top of my game? Was life after that a pointless barrage of nothingness? Had the bullies at Carlisle School (Danny Billera/Wilson, Betsy Jean Clay) traumatized me so much so that I hated all brown haired-squirts from broken homes and overweight Southern girls with two first names for life?

The answer was a resounding yes. Many would find this really pathetic, and I can almost hear many blog readers' internal monologue right now - just get over it, it was a million years ago! Ah, but that, dear blog reader, is where you err - obviously these people on This American Life were not over the traumatic incidents of high school (where one contributor had been thrown down the school stairs by the notorious Jack Abramoff, no less), and here they were on Chicago Public Radio.

The Life Lesson I learned this week was not that writing about the past is a therapeutic way to purge one from the memories that haunt us, but that there is a whole lot of cash money, fancy cars, and fame in capitalizing on high school experiences (see: David Sedaris, Larry Doyle). So I will persevere (for the sake of fame and fortune) and continue to use this blog to write about certain individuals who made me distrust the goodness of the human race. And coming soon to a BackRowBallers blog near you - Bullies at Carlisle School.

--By Mariam, who will make a heroic journey back to Cold Mountain (aka North Carolina), where she will see her old friends Inman and Ruby, this week.