Last week I entered into a strange but familiar place. I entered into a place where outsiders are rarely seen, a place that constantly provokes debate, but never amongst those involved. I entered a place that seemed eerily familiar, yet I knew that I didn’t belong.

Last week, I went to high school.

I was assigned to put together a broadcast news package about high school senioritis — you know, the thing where the kids stop doing their homework after getting accepted into college. Actually, that was my report right there. I got a D.

At the wee hour of 11 a.m., my eyes still bleary from a wake-up call 90 minutes before, I entered the beautiful Marblehead High School. The students, I was told, were about to have lunch.

I checked into the principal’s office, and the sweet scent of discipline raced into my nostrils. I spent many of my formidable years in my high school’s main office. There I served my sentence for such heinous crimes as “coming to homeroom late,” “disrupting class” and “skipping study hall.” They made me write essays and wash tables, and it was great.

I met with the principal, who completely threw me off-guard by treating me like a real adult. Instead of telling me to sit, she kindly showed me where to put my coat. She didn’t talk down to me, she didn’t tell me what to do and she allowed me to do something I have wanted to do my entire life: she let us use the faculty bathroom. No graffiti and pee stains for me. No, I got to poop in style. And it has never felt so nice.

As she led me down the hall, it seemed that she couldn’t take more than five steps without finding another student to reprimand.

“Lenny, where are you supposed to be?” she barked, as the unsuspecting teen quickly reversed direction.

“David, you’re supposed to be in gym! Don’t put that money in the machine! Don’t do it!”

Ah, high school. A place where the rules are strict and the punishments so sweetly mild. I desperately wanted her to scold me for something.

The kids! They were all so beautiful! The girls, with their perfectly groomed hair and sweet pastel colors, and the boys, with their oversized T-shirts and carefully tattered baseball caps. I had forgotten what being properly fed and having clean clothes can do for you.

During my childhood, I thought of high school as the pinnacle of life. It was my ultimate goal, where the kids were “cool” and knew how to comb their hair. What came after was just some vague activity that people called college, where I had heard that drinking was involved.

I paused to look at these students and I was amazed. They were all so freakin’ young! When were these kids born, the early-to-mid-80s?!

These kids, and the previous versions of themselves, were once my peers.

Now, we have nothing in common. Actually, they all kind of annoyed me. All of these really clever boys kept making faces or waving their arms into the camera as they walked by me. Boy, I wouldn’t have thought something like that was funny since the ninth grade!

But everybody knows, while high school boys are goofy and aggravating, high school girls are pure magic. Sure, they are particular spells that I’m not allowed to cast anymore, but I can enjoy the magic from afar and not be too much of a creep. Right? Please say I’m right.

When I looked at those high school girls, all I can think about are the blown opportunities. If only I knew then what I do now! They seemed so intimidating, but all I needed to do was crack the code.

I will always remember sweet Jessica, my 10th grade obsession. I would pass her every morning on the way to English. She had beautiful blonde hair that always smelled like Finesse. I only know that because one day, like a complete dork, I blurted out that she had nice smelling hair.

I never went out of my way to attract her attention because I didn’t want her to think that I liked her or anything. But when she did see me, she would give me the nicest smile, and I would spend all of class beaming, scheming up ways to win her over the next time. It was always the next time — until she started dating a soccer player.

On this day, I felt like I was Scrooge, taken on a tour by the Ghost of Institutions Past. My entire high school experience flashed before my eyes.

In 46 days, I will feel about college the same way that I feel about high school now. From that day forth, I will be an outsider, staring at the new students, thinking, “What’s with these kids and their loud parties?” Someday I’ll race down Commonwealth Avenue on my way to my meeting downtown, and I’ll look at the new kids walking by. I’ll have nothing in common with them, but know everything about them.