If you’re seeing this, first and foremost, thank you. I created 13 On 13 because I started to assume that my high school class wouldn’t be doing anything like a ten-year reunion, and I don’t blame them. These days the high school reunion is a far cry from what we’ve been shown it to be in movies and tv shows. With most of us being on social media in one form or another there’s less mystery behind what our former classmates are up to. We know who’s doing what, who’s living where, and who’s dating who. And if we don’t know, we know how easy it is to find out. We’re part of the first generation to really have as much information as we want about the people we grew up with at our fingertips, and because of that, it’s easy to feel less of an interest in seeing those people again since we already see the ones that we want to see as we scroll, and maybe even some of the ones that we don’t.
Unfortunately, this also makes it easy to feel like some of the people we see on social media are living more interesting or successful lives than us. We see our peers getting married, having kids, traveling the world, or excelling in their careers, and we start to wonder why we aren’t doing the same. We might start to fixate on what we consider our own shortcomings and compare them to what we see other people accomplishing. But when we do this we’re comparing other people’s highlight reels to our worst moments. We’re not seeing posts from people about their failures or other low points in their life. This is, in my opinion, one of the more dangerous aspects of social media. It makes it easier to feel like other people are doing life right, and we’re doing life wrong.
That’s another reason why I’m doing this project. I fully believe that there is no one right way for a person to live their life. There wasn’t back in high school, and there certainly isn’t now. I wanted to talk to a collection of people that I think lived differently from each other in high school, and are still currently living their own different lives ten years later.
On this website, you’ll find interviews I’ve conducted with thirteen of my former classmates from the Brewster High School Class of 2013. I hope you’ll read them. I hope you’ll enjoy them. I hope you’ll learn from them. I had a lot of fun with this project, and I want to thank everyone who took the time to talk to me for it.
13 On 13 