Class of 2001, Ten Year Reunion

Despite a clear and present wish to not have to do so, I have been doing an inordinate amount of learning over the past few months. Apparently a not so joyous yet unavoidable side effect of large life changes is a certain amount of reevaluation, things like who I am versus who I want to be and what I want out of life in general.  One of my more recent realizations came this weekend and it is the importance of keeping expectations low.  I'm not talking just reasonable, I mean on the floor and if possible down the stairs to the basement kind of low. How might this help one in life?  I'm glad that you asked. 

Case and point: 10 Year High School Reunions. 

With my reunion looming last week, I may have temporarily reverted to my spazzy 16 year-old self for a few hours...um days.  As a familiar sense of self loathing and uncertainty settled over me, the expectation became that the reunion would be high school take two, which translates directly to a terrible idea. Apparently though, the expectation of re-experiencing high school via my ten year reunion was FAR worse than actually doing so as I had failed to factor in important changes like vodka.  It was...dare I say fun?  Now if I had held normal expectations of the evening like balanced and mature people not suffering from self-inflicted retrospective high school PTSD,  I wouldn't have been so pleasantly surprised.  It's all about the low expectations. 

It also helped that the last time I saw about 90% of the people at this event, I was unfamiliar with makeup, hairbrushes the ability to speak to the opposite six without stuttering and falling all over my self.   With a baseline like that showing up wearing makeup, my hair brushed and possessing slightly improved social skills....I appeared straight up, impressively improved. One word: divuhhhh!

November 4, 2011

Top 3 Highlights of the Night:

First and foremost, just seeing most of these people again.  As hard as high school was, these people knew me before any guy came into my life and I learned how comforting (or difficult) it can be to have a partner, to have a person.  I can't go back and I definitely wouldn't if I could, but it was nice to be around people who just assumed that I am whole and functional on my own because that's the only way they ever knew me. 

Completely wasted Cookie Monster John came out to play.  Two words:  seven cupcakes.  I wish that I had pictures of this but I'll have to settle for the mental picture I have of him swaggering around the bar smeared with cupcake frosting and with red wine spilled down his sweater.  Vodka (or in this case whiskey and diet) DOES make reliving high school better.

My Meredith.  I know I've more than seen her in the between times but it's always a good night when I get to spend some time with my Meredith. Plus, she brought her equally hilarious boyfriend Rob who ingeniously impersonated a classmate who hadn't attended, thus re-creating the illusion of high school awkwardness when you can't remember who someone is even though you think that you should be able too.  Thanks Brian Salgado, for making this scam possible by not showing up.