Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Reunited

      The 10 year High School Reunion was a smashing success.  I know everyone's dying to see pictures of me with random people I knew 10 years ago.

      Leading up to it, I was super excited.  I had been looking forward to my reunion for 12 years.  Yes, I'm such a nostalgia junkie that I was already looking forward to my reunion before I even graduated high school.  But then when the day of the reunion actually rolled around, I became completely apathetic about the whole thing.  I was having fun hanging out with the Fam.  We went to the local Harvest Festival and the car show, and we were having a really nice, chill day.  I was really surprised at my lack of excitment. 

      We finally pried ourselves away and got ready for the reunion.  And, let me tell you, I looked GOOD.  Sure, it's conceited, but whatever, it's true.  MacGvyer bought me a new dress for the night (he's even better at shopping for me than I am!), and it fit just right.  I put on just a touch of eye make-up, and we were off.  We decided at the last minute to check into a hotel nearby that some of our other friends were staying in even though it worried me leaving Flintstone without either of us overnight.  In the end, I was SUPER glad we did. 
I swear I looked a lot better than I do here .  . .

     We met up with a couple friends at the hotel and walked over to the piano bar where the ruinion was taking place.  When we walked in, I looked around and thought, "WTF?  I don't know any of these people."  Which is a little strange given the fact that I had a very small graduating class and I know half of them on Facebook.

      So we went upstairs to where the reunion was :-) and the first person I made eye contact with when I walked in was an old friend I used to party with - who also happened to be an old friend of Evil Ex's.  A moment of panic struck me.  I know at least a couple people from high school read my blog even though it's supposed to be anonymous and whatnot.  The LAST thing I wanted was to deal with any Evil Ex drama that night - or ever.  But the moment washed away quickly as a huge smile broke over that friend's face and he greeted me excitedly.

      From then on, it was a whole bunch of happy, excited greetings, reminiscing, and catching up.  There were so many people there I was so happy to see and there wasn't a single person there I didn't want to see.  It was so great to see so many of my old friends from high school, and I was thrilled that there wasn't any of the drama I had been worried might present itself.

      Well, almost.  There was one bit of drama, but it stayed very low key.  A friend of mine from high school who had always had a crush on me (who is WELL aware that I am happily married and was there with his fiancee), who has always viewed our relationship as a sort of a "star-crossed" thing did push the boundaries a little.

      I wasn't wuite sure how seeing him would go down.  Though we never dated, we flirted heavily in high school.  We came very close to getting together a couple times, but the timing just never worked out.  I've mentioned this particular friend to me.  He's the one who played me the song Drops of Jupiter by Train while waxing poetic about unrequited love.  I was dating a friend of his at the time, and even though we both knew exactly what we were talking about, even then I dispised the idea of cheating.

     Shortly after we graduated, he declared his deep love for me in a letter, but alas, the timing was off again and "it was too painful" for him to stay in touch with me.

      A few years after that, we started sending some friendly emails back and forth, but he put a stop to it saying that he felt that being in touch with me was a threat to his new relationship even though I lived 500 miles away and was not interested in being in a relationship with him.  Surely, I told him, I wasn't a threat.  "You'll always be a threat."  And that was it.

     SO, now we've been Facebook buddies for a year or so.  As it turns out, I'm friends with his fiancee through other channels.  I'm happily married.  Things are cool.  Finally all the drama - for as much fun as it is to get a little nostalgic about - is over.

      We said a fleeting hi to each other in passing, then went about our nights.  Later - after much drinking had been done by all - I was standing, talking to a friend and her husband about who knows what, when a hand slides across my VERY LOWER back and a person I assume to be MacGyver stands next to me.

      Except it's not MacGvyer.  Ahem.  I was so taken aback, I didn't even know how to react.  I didn't exactly want to draw attention to it.  After all, I had had a few glasses of wine and thought maybe I had been imagining it.  But then, as he's talking to us, his hand keeps brushing my bare thigh, just below my skirt.  I immediately saw someone I just HAD to talk to and was off.  Didn't think much else of it.  It was probably a mistake, and no one had noticed it.

      At least, I thought no one had noticed it.  Later, my friend's husband told me that they had both very clearly seen it.  And apparently I hadn't hidden my thoughts quite as well as I thought I had.  "I thought you were going to smash your wine glass on his face!"  he told me.  Ha.  Oops.  Well at least I DIDN'T . . .

      And honestly, I was a little flattered, too.  Actually, I was flattered a lot of times over the course of the whole night.  I mean, isn't that what these things are all about?  "Oh, my gosh, it's so great to see you; you look amazing; I can't believe what you've been up to," and so on.

      I took it all with a grain of salt.  Flattery is enjoyable, but not very substantive.  There were only two compliments I received that I took seriously, and I am STILL super tickled by them.  An old friend who is super smart, extremely pretty, and has done great things with herself education and career wise since we graduated told me that in her opinion I was the most successful person at the reunion.  How amazing is that?  I don't care if there were only 10 people there, that is such a super sweet thing for anyone to say, I probably squeezed her guts out hugging her.  I am NOT trying to say that was true.  Just how happy I was that someone thought so.

      Then, a few days ago NotDonna told me that I was the hottest female at the reunion.  Now, I don't actually believe this for a second.  I even pointed out to her who the hottest female at the reception actually was.  But it was so sweet of her to say.  And being with everyone from high school, I will say this (braggy though it may be): I have aged well (so far!).  There are a lot of days when I get down on myself, feeling old, feeling out of shape, feeling like I have huge circles under my eyes.  But really, standing in that room, and looking at pictures, I haven't changed much since high school.  I really haven't.  I weigh the same as when I graduated (even though it's distributed a little differently - better, if I do say so myself); I don't have "mom hair," I've stayed fit.  No, I wasn't the hottest female at the reunion, but I've taken care of myself pretty well.

      Not that that means much or makes me any better than anyone else, but come on.  It was my high school reunion!
Chatting with NotDonna

      Really, my favorite meaningless triumph of the night came a few hours in as I was standing watching MacGvyer, NotDonna's husband The Engineer, and the husband of another friend (the one who made the comment about the wine glass above) talk to each other.  And it dawned on me.  They were EASILY the three hottest guys in the room.  Seriously.  If you had told me in high school that I would be thin and successful at my high school reuntion, I would have been happy but not shocked.  But there is no chance in Hell that I would ever have believed that NotDonna, ShortOne, and I would have the HOTTEST husbands at the reunion, bar none.  Even hotter than ANY guy in our class.

Hottest guys at the reunion

      But, man was it true.  And that tickled me more than anything else could have.  Shallow and pointless as it may be.  It's just one of those crazy tricks that fate plays.  We weren't popular.  We weren't unpopular, but we weren't the prettiest girls out to get the handsomest husbands.  What an interesting turn of fate.  (Not to mention an enjoyable one).

      After the "official" reunion ended, the party continued and MacGyver and I found ourselves on the dance floor.  A whole lot of our history is tied up in dancing.  MacGvyer and I dance very well together, though when we've both been drinking it tends to get somewhat provacative.  I'm told there was a fair bit of watching going on.  This maybe should flatter me, but really I just find it embarassing as hell.  Even if our dancing was super impressive, I'm not thrilled at the idea of being watched. C'est la vie.

      After we retired from dancing, we decided to hang out back at the hotel with some friends, but were stopped on the way out. 

THIS is the last thing I remember at the reunion.  Then suddenly we were back at the hotel . . .
       I did a couple shots, then we were miraculously back at the hotel.  Don't know how that happened . . .

      We hung out with ShortOne and her hubs for a while before turning in for the night only to enjoy a wonderful complimentary breakfast (I am a complete sucker for complimentary breakfast) and a late check out in the morning.  Flintstone had a fine night, well taken care of by Uncle Boo and Nan.  Nan was ready for a nap since Flintstone apparently decided he wanted to walk from the house to the Crick and back (which is not a short walk) - over and over again.

      Now I can't wait for the 20 year!


I was also possibly the least photogenic person at the reunion.


7 comments:

Unknown said...

How fun!!!! I never went to mine, but I always regretted it. Looks like you had a fabulous time!

Lydia said...

So glad you had fun and that dress is killer! I haven't gone to any reunions yet - every time they are organized by the biggest douche canoes in my graduating class, who I have no desire to ever cross paths with again.

Macey said...

How cool that you went!
That's probably my worst nightmare. And you know you're cute...at least you're not looking like you're grabbing a boob like the one girl in the last picture.
Also, the dude in the black shirt up there? He looks KINDA like Paul Rudd.

Emily said...

Gotta love those somewhat unresolved, old high school romances that never went anywhere, but it's fun to think about "what could have been."

I didn't hit up my 10 year reunion. It was back in 2009, right after the big economic crisis. The people in charge wanted to have a picnic, bring the kids, etc. Lame. No thank you!

Mandy Rose said...

So sad I couldn't make it :-( Looks like you had a blast! Funny thing is, I was just thinking about you being so successful a couple of weeks ago. You rock!

Manager to Mom said...

Loved this post. I always thought I would hit up my own 10 year HS reunion but then...never did. I actually don't even remember for sure whether there was one or not. That's how much past 10 years I am, heh. Maybe I'll sniff into things around the 19 1/2 year mark. ;)

Karen M. Peterson said...

I'm glad you had a great time. Despite that little bit of drama. Crazy!

I had such a lame time at my 10 year reunion that I decided I'm only going to my 20th if I have a book published, am married to someone really hot, or can afford to arrive by helicopter. Or any combination of all three.

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