Time Heals

My High School Reunion is coming up. I'm actually looking forward to it. I went to school in a very small town in North-eastern Pennsylvania. I actually changes schools my senior year and graduated with a group of people I really didn't know all that well. The reunion I speak of here, is the school I grew up with but did not graduate from.



I'm not going to tell you I loved HS. I didn't....I actually missed so much school that I was threatened a few times by the principle that they were going to hold me back. Not to mention I had detention pretty much everyday I did attend school because of missing so much school. Academically I did fine; A/B student. Not really motivated, but not struggling either.



Socially I was somewhere in the middle - if you read my first blog, I think it pretty much sums it up. Just like most of the teenage population (then and today )I struggled with fitting it, knowing who I was, and what the world was all about. As time goes on I think we become more comfortable with it, but it may be safe to say we all have those times in our life when we feel like we are in HS all over again.



A couple of weeks back, the coordinator of the reunion sent a note to everyone on Facebook. It was a standard, we are having a reunion party. The surprising part came when a girl from my class that was someone on the "outskirts" replied to the invite saying, "Why would I come when nobody ever made me feel welcome when I was there". I read it, and I knew she was right, but it also made me so very sad. That something so long again (20 years) still has such a strong impact on how she feels today.



I had to reply to all. My reply was something along the lines of "have a little faith. Sometimes people change and you may not know it, but there are people who would like to know how you are doing today." Nothing out of the ordinary for me I don't think. I hope that is the way I generally approach things, give it a try, you just never know.



What has really surprised me, is that today, another person from our class responded and said, he felt somewhat the same way as the girl from our class; was sure many felt that way, and that my response may have encouraged many to come forward. To that, I was very surprised and pleased. It made my day to be honest. I know, that even those little things we do can impact others.

In honor of that email, I would like to re-post my Life Explained by Automata Theory

Let me start by saying I'm a junky. I'm hooked on theory.. I don't think you would know it to look at me. I think I hide my passions pretty well. It's a trained response, Pavlov's dog had nothing on me. Besides, isn't that what junkies do after all, or at least attempt to do...fit in and still get their fix? Who's to judge?Setting the stage, can you relate:

Childhood: As a little girl in the '70s, growing up in a small rural community, the underlying message delivered by society, was grow up pretty, find a nice man to marry and have babies. Nobody explained what you should do with all the questions rattling around in your head, and how to find a way to come to some equilibrium with the need for more information and a content life. Can you really zero it all out? I can't tell you how many times I prayed to be theoretically "FAT, DUMB, and HAPPY" . Unfortunately, it just never seemed to fit into any of the formulas presented to me. Let's just keep trying, shall we?

Adolescent: Follow the norm, want what everyone else wants. The system works so don't try to fix it. I definitely wasn't the prettiest girl in school, wasn't the smartest, wasn't the most talented, I wasn't even the most unique. I was someplace in the middle; on the bell curve I was absolutely part of normal distribution. I was extremely NORMAL to the passer by. Maybe I finally found an algorithm that works. Let's continue to do stress testing. Set the goal at 100 years.

Young Adulthood: Against the recommendation of the one person, who, to date, has truly understood I will no more fit into Normal Distribution than Infinity divided by INDIVIDUAL LIFE has Finite meaning, I married and started on my path to a socially acceptable life. Two beautiful babies later, I wouldn't change that experience for anything. Algorithm still seems to hold. Everything is within statistical control. Perfect!

30 Something: Is it about starting over, or building on what we know? The older I get the less I know. One of many definitions of Automata Theory: The mathematical study of machines and their capabilities for solving problems by means of algorithms. That pretty much sums up the population to me, wouldn't you agree? At some point in each and every life, we ask ourselves is this the right path, or do we? And if we don't ask ourselves such questions, are we really any different then a machine? Just applying the rules and conditions to move us from one state of being to another.
"If the computation of an automaton reaches an accepting configuration it accepts that input. At each stage of the computation, a transition function determines the next configuration on the basis of a finite portion of the present configuration. "; David Weir 2000.

Seems pretty straight forward to me. Each of us trying to find the abstract algorithm that works for each of us, knowing that our realities intersect with others, if we so let them. As we parse it all together, it's not a one size fits all model; we try to take what we have learned from others, from our own attempts to make it "work" and we continue to move forward. For sake of society, because quitting isn't a logical option, feeling deep down this all fits into the puzzle of the universe somehow, that each of us has meaning and our time here, though maybe a blip on the calendar of Eternity is significant.

After all...one small deviation in the form of a life lived exactly as the creator intended can create a whole new outcome that we can all benefit from. So, change it up will you, time to make your own math.;- )