My mother asked me if I'd be attending my high school reunion next year. I graduated in 1999. I was sort of shocked that she asked if I'd go to the reunion, seeing as I skipped the graduation ceremony altogether. Come to think of it, I didn't do my college graduation either. I'm not sure there's anyone I went to school with that I couldn't stalk via google or myspace if I was that insanely curious about their life.
I know this because last year a boy I hadn't seen since 5th grade managed to find me on myspace and send me a message. We used to chase each other around the playground like idiots. I was both surprised and happy to hear from him. Very few other people fall into that category, ya know? It's not like I actively shun people that used to know me, but I'm barely recognizable compared to who I was in high school. The thing of it is that when a person has changed who they are, it's not really all that fun to spend an evening being continually reminded. Or worse, people who assume no one ever changes and still behave towards you like the past is still applicable.
I was the poster child for a depressed adolescent. I was a slacker and a stoner. I was unmotivated and bored out of my mind. Things got a lot better for me and I really like the person I've become. The last thing I want to do is spend an evening in a room of people who will be looking me over trying to determine if I've gotten fatter or uglier (negative), if I'm still a stoner (negative) and if I ever managed to go to school (yes. still paying. thanks Drexel!)
How fun is that? Then of course are the three lifestyle questions I hate answering. Every time I run into anyone, it is inevitable these things are asked in this order
"So, are you married?"
"Do you have any kids?"
And when the answer to the first two is no...
"Aw, why not? You're pretty/There's still time/Don't jump off the Ben Franklin bridge yet!" *insert sympathetic look here*
I never ask anyone those questions. Because they are fucking annoying as hell. All they do is succeed in making me wonder if I'm living in 1945 and that career goals, financial goals, a desire for travel and just plain having fun are concepts from an alternate universe or if I'm supposed to be weeping myself to sleep since my finger is still not adorned with a shiny rock. I am not a walking uterus or an egg farm.
The last person who asked me about having kids and why not. I said "That doctor said all the whiskey isn't good for babies"
If you want to tell me all about your wedding and your lovely children, go for it. Don't try to make me feel better about something that, before this year, never registered as something I should feel bad about.
So no mom, I won't be going to the reunion.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
2 comments:
my ten year reunion is coming up, too, i guess. actually, i don't know because the last time someone from the high school alumni place called to get my updated information i told them to please take my name off the list because i wouldn't be going.
i don't regret that, either. i think the problem is that i never felt like i had anything in common with anyone that i went to high school with. to run into them now mean a few minutes of those little pointless plesantries, which i hate.
those kids never liked me, anyway. i would never have rebuked any offer of friendship from any of them, but i never got one. now i kind of feel like it's too late for them to have matured, had the realization that you SHOULD give people a chance, that the high school social hierarchy is not all the matters in life, and pretend it never happened and that we're all cool.
with the exception of the whole job thing, i really like my life now. i just don't see a reason to go and revisit who i was as a kid.
screw it go to the reunion and do what i did at mine. Get wasted and ask the fucknutts you never liked where to score some blow. when they wince ask them if they have any kids and if they need a baby sitter.
hahahahah.
Post a Comment