10 Year Reunion

I mentioned a few days ago that my 10 year high school class reunion is coming up this summer. It's funny because I found out about it by getting an email from one of the class leaders from our senior year. She was asking for my email address so that she could forward me the evite. That alone was strange. I got the evite and immediately decided not to go. It was my first instinct.

High school was not a good time for me. The reality of it is that I was bigger than small town Maine. I didn't do the things that everyone else wanted to do and I didn't want to. I didn't want to get stuck. I didn't want to end up pregnant like most of my friends. I didn't want to be in the same place that I grew up in. I wanted excitement, energy and to be where people didn't care if I wanted to be women or if I wanted to be with men. I just wanted out of what I considered to be my hell.

In retrospect, I can understand that was mostly about me. I did need out. I needed a different life. The people in that small town where just people, after all. There were some who were ignorant and some who were alright. Most of them just didn't care about me - they were busy living their own lives. I had some nasty run-ins, but who didn't in high school?

But I don't want to go back. It's funny - those people may not be the problem, but for me they represent everything that I managed to "escape". I don't want to see them all again. I don't want to feel that yucky insecurity that bubbles up from the bottom of my belly. I don't want to have anything to prove. I don't want for people to come walking over to me and then ask about my brothers. Mostly, I don't want to end up standing by the food table with some alcoholic beverage in my hand and realize that I was forgettable to them. You know?

It's silly. And maybe someday it will stop being such a horrible memory for me. But right now, 10 years isn't enough time away from the hell that high school (and middle school and junior high) were for me. My life is so good...I don't want to have to feel crappy about something that I've managed to successfully put in the past.

So...this June, when all my old classmates gather at the Senator in Augusta, Maine, I'll be here at our little house, nursing our newborn daughter, wrapped up in the arms of the woman who made all of my dreams come true. And I might feel like I'm missing out on something...but then again, I might not.