"the best years of our lives"

So my 10 year high school reunion is coming up. In two years. For some reason all the hooplah is starting 2 years in advance. As if my classmates have scattered across remote continents and are without facebook, myspace and email, with which we can hunt them down within seconds. So we need to begin the furtive searching now! Anyways, I'm not complaining, really. Just curious at the "McHenry West Campus Class of 2000 UNITE" Movement that's in full swing.

At any rate, with the aforementioned movement comes two startling realizations. 1. I missed my grade school 10 year reunion. We all did, I think. I mean... I still keep in touch with one and a half of my gradeschool classmates and I have yet to hear an announcement. And then,

2. That I'm so not ready for this.

It isn't that I didn't like high school. I mean, I didn't really, but that's besides the point. Its more that I've never been able to completely outrun that akward and insecure 16-year-old that felt like she was creeping crawling in her own skin. I wasn't an outcast in high school by any means. I fit in just fine. I wasn't "hot", but rather, cute enough to garner a small amount of attention from the hormone-engaged opposit sex. I wasn't athletic, but aside from PE, that really never mattered. I wasn't wealthy or popular, but I had a great weekend job and was best friends with half of the homecoming court AND the prom queen, so I knew my way around the social circles. The "goody-goody" circles, at any rate. I mean, my parents are both in law enforcement, so anything else wasn't likely to work out, was it?

I really don't know what it is. Honestly, I don't! I went away to college, where I found Jesus and a husband that I adore (along with a completely pointless degree in sociology). I'm comfortable- confident even- in large groups of people. I can strike up a conversation with a stranger without downing a cocktail first. I can run three miles without stopping, bake a mean chocolate chip cookie and style my own hair without frizz (a pretty huge accomplishment, in the end). And I know this will sound silly to most of you, but I can actually type without looking at the keys. Do you know how long that has taken me to accomplish?! Its been life-altering. Really.

But I've finally given in and joined a "class reunion" page and in skimming through the various faces and in some cases, webpages, of my old clasmates, I feel my stomach knot up in a self-betraying bundle of nerves! Within seconds I've reverted to the insecure and jittery braces-laden sophomore that I once was. Frankly, its downright infuriating. After all I've accomplished, this is as far as I've managed?

I think it comes down to my inconveniently sharp memory. You know those surveys that ask "if you could go back to high school right now, would you?" My answer is always a resounding "heck no", but even more then that, its "What's the point, it's still way fresh in my mind." I also think that I've never really been comfortable with Hurt. And lets face it, high schoolers are cruel. Not all, but some. And I witnessed enough hurt and rejection during those four years to recognize that I don't ever need to go back.

I remember with vivid detail walking down the hallway hand in sweaty hand with my for-the-moment-boyfriend and watching a couple of thugs from the wrestling team pin a small, likely homosexual boy to the lockers. After making certain they had a worthy audience, they began noisily humping him. That small boy's face, flashed with anger and humiliation is forever seered into my memory.

I can still smell the PE locker room and can practically hear the murmor of biting gossip. I can still remember comparing myself to every other girl in there, and finding myself lacking.

I remember when I dressed like a "slut" for an experimental school project and I garnered more male attention then I ever had in my life- and liked it. A little. I mean, one of the most popular guys looked my up and down and actually said "you look like a whore.... That's awesome." (huge thumbs up for me) Later that day I was told that I was one of two girls nominated at the "poster girls for absitnence", since we were the girls everyone wanted to sleep with but wouldn't give it up. Nice, huh? I took that as a compliment, too. At the time. Now it haunts me for some stupid reason. Was I a tease? or a prude? or worse, both?

And today, in light of recent events, I remember the occassional Monday morning announcements that came equipped with the typical request for a "moment of silence" for a classmate that had died over the weekend. Sometimes it was a car accident, other times it was a drug overdose. A few times it was suicide.

Yeah, high school was tough. And I realize that I am way more emotional and sensitive than I ought to be. Totally aware of it. And you'll probably read this and say, "wow. seriously. get over it." And to be perfectly honest, I am. When it comes down to it, high school really doesn't creep into my thoughts very often, its just that when it does, it's kind of vicious. Perhaps it is just all this reunion talk...

I'm just saying that I'm not all that sure that I am ready to revisit. Maybe that is why they are giving me two years of advanced notice.


Just A Little Side Note: We have a small group of high school kids over to our place every Thursday night for a bible study/youth group type of deal. Last week, we talked about making decisions. One of the questions that came up was "What is the hardest thing about high school". You know what the kids said? "Homework, teachers, parents" You know that the leader said? "Insecurity, peer pressure, trying to fit in".

Interesting, isn't it. When you are amongst the fray, you think nothing of the peer pressure and issues with self image, but once you are well out of it, and you finally become the person you are meant to be, it becomes so obvious what held you back all those years before!