2.21.2006

20 Year Reunion

I have run 20 out of 22 days. I had wanted to run 21 days straight, however I took a few breaks due to being tired or lazy or something. My last blood test showed a fair decline in red blood cells due to the Zyvox, so I guess that explains the tired. Once that came back showing anemia, I cut myself a break and took a day off. It felt good. It also made it easier to run the days after that.

Running along with weight training a couple times a week should be making a dent in the weight I want to lose, but it has yet to show any significant changes. I am doing the whole South Beach Diet thing, and although we had meltdown Friday and ate not only a bad lunch (I had a burger and fried pickles), but also had wine, we have done very well. I am hoping to see a nice drop this week. If there has not been much change by Saturday I will have to come up with a Plan B. Plan B is never fun. It has such an ominous sound to it doesn’t it?

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I received an invitation to my 20th high school reunion. Wow, I am aging. 20 years… No – I am not going. Wouldn’t even consider it. I was never friends with most of the people in my school and it would be fairly pointless to pretend otherwise. I was shy, pretty quiet, and a huge geek. I broke out of my shell my junior year, but hung out with kids at other schools more than my own. The few kids I was friends with have drifted away and I suppose it doesn’t really matter to me. But it is still unbelievable to me – 20 years.

When I found out about the reunion I went out to classmates.com and started browsing through the list of people from my graduating class. I wondered what happened to different people – the first guy I ever really liked, the first guy I kissed, some of my friends old boyfriends, girls I knew but didn’t end up staying great friends with, and then there was the random people that I ran into at a game or party that for some reason stuck in my head all these years later. I didn’t want to sign up for the “gold” package so I could only see limited information on people…but it was funny to drudge up the old memories.

Would you go back to high school again? No way in HELL you could get me to. It was hard, and it wasn’t very much fun. I didn’t have a lot of friends, and I was a geek. I had a few good friends, and for that I am grateful, however those were some hard times that I don’t want to repeat.

When I was a junior in high school a friend of mine moved in with us. Her parents moved to Arkansas in the middle of the year and she wanted to finish the school year before moving to be with them. She was very popular and had a huge network of friends. She had a boyfriend, and he had tons of friends too. She was also a little demon…loved to party and drink and cause trouble. She didn’t like to study or hang out at home. She loved to stir things up. As for the partying – she decided on several occasions to have them at my house while my mom was working (she worked nights) and published the events to the whole school. It was nice to have all of those kids at my house, but 1) I didn’t drink and 2) I didn’t really know most of the people there. I would kill myself getting the house clean before my mom got home and of course the instigator was NO HELP as she was always hung over. I did end up getting a date to junior prom through her, although that is a disastrous story for another time. And I am sure I owe the fact that I ever dated at all to her…

The end result of those parties was the neighbors told my mother what was going on, she sent my friend home to Arkansas early, and then tried to send me to a private school. Thank god they wouldn’t accept incoming seniors or I would have been in a Baptist school hell my final year of high school.

So – the high school experiences were not the greatest. And those were certainly not the best times of my life. And if they had been, wouldn’t that just be sad? I can honestly say that now is the best time of my life. Every day is better and better than the one before. I have a rich, full life. My kids and husband are wonderful and I cannot imagine things being any different.