I am normally an easy-going person. I am fairly secure with myself.
This has taken years of practice and affirmations.
One of the most horrible experiences of my life was high school. I was never popular, but I really never had a lot of desire to be. Most of the students who were popular, you could tell even then that high school was going to be the high point of their lives.
I just wanted to get done and get the hell out of there and start my real life.
So I find I am a bit surprised at myself, experiencing so much anxiety and angst about this.
I have several times considered not even going.
It's not like I had this huge circle of friends in high school and I regarded it as a warm, fun, nurturing environment tailored to a teen-ager learning. It was more like a diploma factory. Get in, get the credits, get the hell out.
Nope, most of my fellow students wanted nothing to do with me in high school. Some of my fellow students were actually actively ostracized. Some of those students are actually on the "missing list" of people the organizers can't find.
An example. One of my fellow students, let's call her Jane, was considered fair game for all sorts of cruel jokes and ridicule. At one point, she was nominated for either Homecoming or Winter Sports Week Queen. As a joke, of course. Someone said something to the administration and there was an announcement during homeroom telling us we should be ashamed of ourselves. I wasn't involved in it, but felt badly all the same since I had been friends with Jane in middle school. I felt guilty by association since I didn't go to any adult and tell them what was going on.
Jane is on the missing list. Like do you really think she would want to come to this and celebrate what was most likely a horrible chapter in her life?
Yes, I am a bit bitter about high school. Why? Because while I didn't really want to be popular, it would have been nice to have been looked at like I wasn't invisible. I was not Jane, by the way. But I can understand how she must have felt. What a horrible thing to do, wonder who's idea it was. Did they think they were reenacting the Carrie movie or what?
This reunion is just stirring up a lot of insecurities I thought I had long buried. I never fit into any group. I got made fun of, but not to the extent of Jane. I was also ignored mightily. Both were painful.
I don't look back at high school as the pinnacle of achievement of my life. I have some good memories, some fun times. Mostly I remember it as being a stopgap until I could do something really meaningful and fun. (As if I made such a success out of myself after college, but that is a whole other entry on the old blog.) But what makes me an interesting person now didn't count for doodle in high school. It probably won't now either, as my charm and sense of humor are lost on many people to this day.
Wonder what will be made of me, with my crew cut hair, my two tattoos, my tan and my British husband and my two marriages.
Screw it. I just want to have fun with Darr and Sarah.
Give me a glass of wine, damn it. Better not be pink, either.
Please note several things about this picture. First of all, I never went to a Howell prom. In my junior year, I dated a guy named Dave Ellis who went to Brighton. This is a picture from his prom, circa 1983. This is probably the most normal I ever looked in high school. Good God, I had on a turtleneck prom dress.
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