It’s that time again… Reunion time.
I don’t know about you, but high school was a period of my life that I was glad to put behind me. I wasn’t all that tight with anyone. In fact until recently I haven’t even been touch with anybody that I was “close” with in high school. Interestingly enough I’ve kept up with some friends from before high school and some from after, but none from that fateful 4 years of my life.
I was one of those weird, undefinable kids that hung with the honors kids and at the same time, the band geeks. I wasn’t ever one of the “popular kids,” not for want of trying but was never really cool enough. In the end, the best description for me is probably “drama queen.” Yeah, I hung with the theater kids too. I spent most of that time in “love” with at least one boy who didn’t return that feeling. I was the only kid who got a perfect score on the AP English semester paper but struggled mightly to pass geometry. It’s the eternal story but I really didn’t fit in anywhere.
- Didn’t go to prom
- Couldn’t make call-backs for the Spring Musical to save my life
- Was told once by a great, gay friend that I shouldn’t diet anymore because I might fall over from being top-heavy
- Was told by the drama teacher that I was “too healthy-looking” to think that I could really land a leading role
- Finally landed an ingenue part but the guy who got the part opposite me (and was a football player) refused to.work with me because he wanted to work with another girl. I was told to step aside because “that’s how it is is in the pros…”
- When the Senior AP English teacher announced who got the perfect score on the term paper, everyone looked around like, “Who? Her?”
- Had to repeat the 2nd semester of Geometry to get a grade that gave me a prayer of getting into a decent college, at least by my parents’ standards.
- And that’s not even getting into my parents’ divorce in middle school or how much I was moved around from 5th to 9th grade…
Now, almost 25 years later, I’m faced with: do I really want to go back there? Yes, there were some fun times. There were more times that were just heartbreaking. To this day, I don’t understand pre-teen and/or teenage girls. They are some of the meanest, most loving, most hurtful,spiteful people that the Lord put on this Earth. And don’t even get me started on boys…
When my daughters come to me with problems with their friends, girl or boy, I don’t know what to say. I mean I barely made it through myself and still don’t understand what could make people be so mean to each other as my “friends” and I were to each other back in those days.
So, why would I want to go back there? Well for my 25th, I’ve already decided not to go there. Told my dad that I wouldn’t be coming in this August but I’d try to make it in soon. This was an issue for me 5 years ago and will be an issue in another 5.
There are people that I was, at least at times, close to. People who had their own hardships and reasons for having trouble staying close to others, but we had our moments. Moments that I can remember as clear as crystal even now like laughing until we cried over a rotten, black pear that was sitting on a friend’s nightstand and she didn’t even remember that it was there until I turned and gaped at it in the middle of a conversation one night. Or the Freshman that sang “Rio” over and over again during our Choir trip to Mexico City Junior year. They were lucky that we didn’t push them out of the airplane down there but it still makes me love that song. Or growing apart over stuff like boys and lifestyles and other BS stuff. The sad thing is that, good, bad or indifferent, there aren’t any other people in this world who I can share those same memories with.
The flip side to that coin is that even some of the people that were there with us don’t have the same memories or perspectives on that time. If I’m going to fork out for plane fare and a rental car (don’t get me started on why I need that…) then I’d like to know I’ll see at least a few of the people I was closest to. And that’s the rub, I was part of a huge class but only really close to a few people.
My biggest fear is going to this thing and having a whole bunch of people I don’t remember, not remember me too. And that takes me right back to: why should I bother? I wanted to be somebody back then. Now doesn’t matter. Or at least, it shouldn’t matter.
I’ve got the cool job. Hot, fun husband - check. 4 beautiful kids, great life, so why does it matter to me what these losers from my past think? To me now, it doesn’t matter. To the me back then, it mattered a whole lot.
I wish I could go back and tell that person that it would all be OK in time. But she wouldn’t have believed me, just like my daughters don’t believe me. Sometimes I don’t even believe me. I hate living with all these doubts and second thoughts…
But I wouldn’t go back and do again for any money so why should I try to go back and change it now? Would I really want to?
