Reuniting, and it feels so... what?

I know it's hard to believe, given my incredibly youthful appearance and vibrant joie de vivre, but in a few weeks, I will attend my twenty year high school reunion.  No, that wasn't a typo.  Twenty years.  As in, one year more than nineteen, and one less than twenty one.  Five more than fifteen.  Twenty more than zero.  For those of you out there who are keeping track, this means that I may be slightly older than 25.  But only slightly.

The decision to go to this reunion wasn't an easy one for me.  For a variety of reasons, when I crossed that stage so many years ago at graduation, I promised myself I would walk away (when I was fully able to walk, that is) and not go back.  Kind of like that scene in Aladdin when Jasmine says "I ran away, and I am never going back," except I wasn't running away from a castle and I wasn't sitting on a rooftop with a monkey when I said it.  I was definitely wearing harem pants, though.  It was, after all, the 90s.

Anyway, despite this promise to my seventeen year old self, I decided that I would go.  I did decide, however, that I would not wear harem pants.  So that's progress, right?

To get people excited for the event, our reunion planning committee set up a Facebook page - because even we old people use the Facebooks these days!  Through this page, I've had the chance to reconnect with people a bit in advance, which in some respects takes the surprise out of the reunion but at least for me has gone a long way toward making me feel less nervous.  Thank goodness someone posted pictures from our yearbook (and no, I NEVER thought I would say that), because it has names underneath many of the pictures and has therefore been a godsend to help me figure out who is who!  (Confession to Shawn: I think we emailed a bit around the last reunion and I just kept going along with the discussion, even though I had no recollection of who you are.  I totally know now, not only thanks to being friends with you on FB, but especially now that I've seen that awesome picture of you with the Color Me Badd hair.)

Some interesting stories have come out as well; it seems like time not only heals all wounds, but tolls the statutes of limitations - perhaps not criminally or civilly, but certainly as to embarrassment!  People are outing each other's deepest, darkest secrets, including their long-unrequited crushes.  What I love about these discussions is that everyone is included this time.  In high school, we were all at separate tables in the cafeteria, in separate classes, involved in our own little microsystems, and although just about everyone in our class generally got along, there didn't appear to be a lot of cross-group interaction.  Here, each thread is like one big cafeteria table, with a lot of people ribbing each other and throwing each other under the bus.  It's like one big John Hughes-style house party, and everyone is invited!  And we are all so old!

So far, I haven't brought myself to confess any big deep secrets; I think the biggest disclosure I've made is that I had a crush on the Hazlerig brothers.  But let's be honest: what warm-blooded girl in our school didn't have a crush on Ben and/or Sam at some point?  And it's probably no surprise to anyone who knew me then that I generally liked my teachers.  On this blog, anyway, I've already confessed to a deep-seeded regret that I never pursued a career in the fine art of Vegas tub-sitting.  What more is there?

Oh, there is so much more, mes amis.  SO.  MUCH.  MORE.  Someone once told me that during our four years together in high school, I was a bit of an enigma.  After all, I didn't go to a lot of parties (maybe only a few our senior year), and I hung out with a pretty broad group of people so couldn't necessarily be completely defined by my clique.  This person remembered me mostly for being smart, nice and athletic.  [Yawn.]  In some respects, though, I'm glad this was the impression; I think I'd rather be remembered as something of a vanilla-flavoured-mystery than as a caricature of who I actually was, which was mostly someone who felt conspicuous, out of place, dorky, who didn't know where she fit in, who didn't know how to talk to boys other than what she learned in Seventeen magazine (which, in hindsight, I can confirm was largely inaccurate advice), and who mostly wanted to just get through the whole high school thing unscathed (ha!) and move on with my life.  But let's be honest... it wasn't like ANY of us knew who we actually were back then.  Real life wasn't what was happening in those halls; it's what came after.  High school was the prequel to the real scene.  High school set the stage for who we would eventually become, what we might eventually do, where we might want to go, and how we would turn out - it was the pilot episode to our lives with a "To Be Continued" screen at the end.  (This isn't just me waxing poetic; psychologically speaking, the teenage years are years of development, growth and experimentation, not of completion of self.  Just sayin'.)

So truly, there is so much more to tell... for all of us.  Some of it will be good.  Some of it will be bad.  Some of it will be hilariously embarrassing.  (I'm especially looking forward to hearing those parts!)  But all of it will have been built on the foundation that was laid in the 1980s and early 1990s back in the 'Hall.

See you in October, fellow Rams!

What the f-? (#istandup2cancer)

So I'm here watching Stand Up 2 Cancer, bawling my eyes out, and I think to myself "hey, self, you need to write."  No idea what I need to write, but here I am, typing away as though I know where it's going.

The vignettes with the kids are especially hard to watch.  Have you ever known a child who has been diagnosed with cancer?  I can't say that I have, although I feel certain that I was around them when my mom was teaching.  I definitely knew children who died too young: the first one I remember is Mikey, who was a student at my mom's school.  He died on the school bus.  I think he was maybe 5?  I was around the same age, and remember wondering, "what the f-?"  I mean, I didn't wonder that exactly, but I'm sure it was not all that far off.  I mean, little kids aren't supposed to die.  My nieces' friend shouldn't have died from leukemia.  Kids shouldn't have to say things like "I'm not afraid of passing away."  I knew all of these things even then when Mikey died, and I know it even better now.  Lord, how I know that now that I have a son of my own.  And just the thought of Nate being diagnosed with something potentially fatal... holy crap.  I think I just threw up a little bit in my mouth.

These kids in the video vignettes are so brave.  So freaking brave.  Like, beyond belief.  And their parents!  Don't even get me started on their parents.  Grace.  Calm.  Serenity.  Peace.  I can only assume that they've already (I assume in private) gone through their drunk-off-their-ass-shouting-obscenities-from-the-mountaintop-hating-the-world phase.  Good to know you can come out of it.  I still can't imagine it. [More barf.  Seriously.  How do these people do it?  They clearly are medicated or go to therapy A LOT.]

Alice, my mother in law, died from cancer last year.  Not sure if you all knew that.  She was having trouble swallowing.  It wasn't anything big at first,  and you know, she was one of those super-polite Canadians who doesn't ever want to inconvenience anyone, so who knows how long it bugged her before she went to a doctor about it.  But if I remember correctly, she said it felt like there was something stuck in her throat.  Well, as it just so happens, there was.  A damn cancer was in her esophagus.  Damn.  Cancer.  Can I say it enough?  Damn you, cancer.  Damn you, damn you, damn you.  Damn you straight to hell.  You suck.  Big time.  HUGE.  There Alice was, just minding her own business, busy being one of the most wonderful people I've ever met in my life (and let me be clear, I have been fortunate enough to meet some amazing people in my life), and boom... cancer.  To repeat what I thought when I was a kid and Mikey died: what the f-?

So maybe that's where this post is going: to a big what the f-?  Maybe it's headed to a big no really, someone out there in the world please explain to me how this happens.  A series of questions, like: How in the world does a child get cancer?  Why do children have to be so damn brave?  Why do parents have to watch their children fight and fight and fight and then still die?  Why do wonderful people get diagnosed with horrible, virtually uncatchable, untreatable cancers?  Why do people have to make the decision whether to keep on treating, or whether to simply walk away to die on their own terms?  Can someone out there - someone with faith, someone who believes in God, someone who understands science, someone who understands it - please explain it to me?  And on a side note, why did Komen have to go and screw with Planned Parenthood, so that I and so many other women end up feeling so conflicted about supporting them?  Maybe that one isn't so much part of the bigger questions.  But it's there... at least for me.

While I wait for some answers, I will simply do what I can whenever I can to help.  You have a 5k?  I'll run in it.  My time will suck, but I will be there, and I will wear your t-shirt with pride.  You have a telethon on television?  I'll watch, and I'll donate.  You shakin' a can at the grocery store?  I'll find some money in my purse for you.  Because kids shouldn't have to be brave this way.  Grandmothers shouldn't have to draw the curtains closed on their lives this way.  Parents shouldn't have to cry this way.  And I don't want to throw up in my mouth any more.