10.23.2007

This Mid-Life Crisis Moment is being brought to you by the letters E, A, H, and S, and by the numbers 92 and 15.

So ... 15 years, 4 months, and 11 days ago, I graduated from high school. I was 18 at the time, which makes me 33 years old now. (Remember that for the next time you hear someone ask me how old I am, because odds are I won't be telling that person the truth. Usually, I round up and say I am "almost 40," so people will tell me how good I look -- "ohmigod, you don't look 40!" To which I humbly but nonetheless knowingly reply, "Thanks." Because I am vain and selfish and I will get my compliments however I can; I don't look like I'm almost 40. Because I am not. It's a weird ethical calculus, I guess, but in my head it makes sense. Yes, I know I am kind of a jerk that way, but being smart and being jerky are not binary conditions. But I am digressing.)

I have been poking around, and it doesn't look like my class has a reunion scheduled before the end of the year. Those people suck. For some reason, this comes as a great disappointment to me. To be perfectly frank, the odds of my voluntarily attending my high school reunion are approximately equal to the odds of me getting myself sperminated by Josh Beckett anyone who isn't my husband. Which is to say, about (-1)ⁿ against. (Definitely take the under on that one, boys and girls.) I know I am fifteen years removed from the alleged so-called end of my adolescence, but let's face it: I am still bitter. High school sucked hard, and I don't like remembering it if I don't have to.

Just the same, I am disappointed that there doesn't appear to be anything going on. Paranoid schizophrenic sociopath that I am, I can't help but wonder if this is some kind of personal affront. I didn't go to the last reunion either -- I was even more bitter and crazy then than I am now. What if I missed out on a crucial memo or something? What if all the cocktail napkins had some top-secret password on them that I am supposed to enter into a special website where I can download all the specs of the mission? How am I supposed to know what is going on?

These feelings are weird, even to me, because I am not really all that interested in what everyone else is doing. I went through that not that long ago (OK, wow, a year ago already?), and it took me to a very ugly and unpleasant place that I am not particularly interested in visiting right now. But when I have to think about high-school-related events that I plan to avoid, it makes me think about high-school-related events that I would like to relive, and it makes me kind of sad to realize that there really aren't that many of them.

Essentially -- and I mean zero disrespect to anyone who actually knew me in high school -- my entire highlight reel of high school looks like this:

Greece. 1992. April, I think. In this picture are, left to right, Ellyson Stout, Analia Regina, me, and Vivian Schoeppner. (Not pictured is the 100 lbs. or so that I have gained since then, but don't worry -- it's mostly boobs and anyway, I carry it well. Shut up.) In the background is the Acropolis. That is one of the bluest skies that I have ever seen, before or since. Even with all the smog, the noise and the pollution and the zillions of people, I can't remember anything ever smelling so sweet. Freedom. The whole wide world, laid out in front of me, and I was going to take it on, guns blazing. I was going to be a sportscaster, dammit! I was going to do play-by-play on Monday Night Football, ferchrissakes.

Wait ... I was pissed because those people suck? Hmm. Guess I'm the sucker.

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