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Ha ha ha high school
I got an email two weeks ago, informing me that a number of people from my high school were getting together to celebrate our 20th reunion.
Once I came to, having passed out from the realization that I am older than time (e.g., I can still remember jelly shoes, shoulder pads, and pegged jeans), I laughed. I mean, really laughed.
Would I attend my high school reunion?
The fuck I would.
I went to a high school in Texas. Said high school's catchment area seemed to uniquely hold all the wealthy beautiful people who looked as though they walked straight off the set of "Dallas," complete with football Fridays and big hair (which was dyed undeniable shades of blond). They didn't stoop to real emotion and smelled faintly of dreams that they would never live up to (perhaps it was hidden by the smell of their hairspray).
They also made my life difficult. A non-native Texan who definitely lived on the wrong side of the tracks, I was the class clown, the nerd, and the weird Ally Sheedy loser all in one (eat your heart out, Brat Packers). I wore many hats, none of them the right brand. I drove a 12 year old PoS car as well, which parked in the student parking lot would occasionally be the subject of the football players joking when they came off the practice - on more than one occasion they left a beer bottle filled with piss perkily perched on the hood of my bean can. My class was also huge - when I graduated it was with about 1,000 others.
I couldn't name even a half dozen of them now. High school has largely been wiped from my memory as an endurance test - like a half marathon you can run, or the 24-hour "Sisters" TV marathon - that one just survives and then doesn't look back. I left the town, state, and country. I have no contact with any of my old classmates.
I watched Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion with something akin to deep understanding. I too would love to turn up and see some of those people who made my life hell. I would love to see them with lives that did not live up to their loftier ambitions. I'd love to swoop in and make people envious of my lifestyle, and to kick themselves for not being my friend way back when. But the truth is, I'm as much of a nobody as I ever was (and I'm ok with that), and life has taught me that people born into money, well...they typically stay in the money.
I don't need my high school reunion. I'm not going to be magnanimous here and say I wish the people in my past a good life because really, I'm not that big. But the world is a big place, they have their part, I have mine.
And unlike Romy and Michelle, I totally would have kept going with that Post-It story.
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Comments (13)
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Report Fri Aug 31, 2012 - 12:10 amI went to my 10-year reunion with my new husband, not sure what to expect. I had been the class "genius" from kindergarten on, and was called "the brain with legs", never being asked on dates, always hated for being the "curve-buster" since the teacher couldn't drop what constituted an A when I had a 100% score. I looked around at the reunion and the boys I had been in-love with were mostly fat, bald and uninteresting compared with my sexy husband. Many of them still longed for and spoke nostalgically about the halcyon days of high school, when they were big-shots. Now they were just normal people. How tragic, to feel that your life peaked in high school! Now you have, what, the next 70-years to feel sad that you won't ever be that great again? I'm in my 50s now and still waiting to hit my "high". The journey is the fun part, not the destination. I also went to my 20th reunion and the clash of what "was" with what "is now" was even more jarring. Would I go to any future ones? Probably not. But I'm glad I got the opportunity to look around and realize that I no longer had to care about what those people thought about me. That epiphany alone was worth it.Reply -
2 replies, Last reply by Teresa on Fri Aug 31, 2012 at 11:13 pm
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Report Fri Aug 31, 2012 - 11:09 pmYou know what really bugs me? Some of these people who made my life a living HELL in high school want to be my "friend" on facebook. Even worse, they post crap like "my kids may be a little quirky but that doesn't give anybody a right to pick on them", or worse, they are always spewing out some 'Christian brotherhood' crap and other likewise sanctimonious B.S. I stay in contact with the people I generally liked then and still do now. The others, I don't give a shit.Reply
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Report Fri Aug 31, 2012 - 10:10 pmDo I feel less alone after reading this!! Facebook has brought contact with women who said we were at high-school together, but I can't remember a one of them. There has to be a reason for that. Right? Buggered if I know what it is, but I do know that there is a huge gap in my memory - such as it is - as far as high school is concerned, and I'm quite happy to leave it that way! ps Loved the vacation photos you posted.Reply
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Report Fri Aug 31, 2012 - 5:47 amNever been to a high school reunion. Didn't fit in then and don't now. But someone I knew back then contacted me recently and we got together. She told me that if it wasn't for me and one other girl she would've spent her entire four years alone because apparently up until she met us she'd been eating lunch alone in the bathroom. Brought tears to my eyes, but it felt good to know that I wasn't the only misfit and that I was at least able to help someone else.Reply
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Report Fri Aug 31, 2012 - 12:27 amLast year went to my 50HS reunion. First one I attended. A most amazing thing: I relaized the people I liked then- still liked. The rest were still not on my happy list. Do I regret not going to the others? Not so much.Reply
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1 reply, Last reply by Everyday Stranger on Fri Aug 31, 2012 at 12:55 am
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Fri Aug 31, 2012 - 12:22 am
POST ITS - "Actually I invented a special kind of glue." HAHA I have a terrible love/hate relationship with my high school. I'll probably go back, but it'd totally be better if I got horribly famous first & rubbed it right in their faces. I mean, whut??...Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by Everyday Stranger on Fri Aug 31, 2012 at 12:54 am
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Fri Aug 31, 2012 - 12:40 am
I went to my 20 yr reunion, simply to actually see who got fat and who was posting photoshopped pictures on Facebook (a hint: the ones that got fat). I,too, was the Ally Sheedy-esque loser...and unlike Them-I only had one husband, and one father to my children. The other awkward dorks were...Successful. It was fun seeing them, and what had become of everyone. However, I have NO interest in going to a 30 yr reunion (in 2013), unless I can handpick whoever else will be there.Reply -
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Thu Aug 30, 2012 - 3:21 pm
Oh hell no! Fuck High School Reunions. Isn't that what FB is for now, so you don't have to actually see those assholes IRL. Besides, you are needed ITPR, where the popular kids hang out.Reply -
1 reply, Last reply by Everyday Stranger on Thu Aug 30, 2012 at 6:11 pm
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