Tonight I am going to my 20th grade-school reunion.
I don't want to go, entirely. But Emmy (one of my best friends from that school)is going, and she convinced me that it might be interesting. And, after all, she said--it's not like you HAVE to stay. You can leave, if you hate it.
Good point, I guess.
I never liked those people. I had my own little crew of friends, but mostly I was the fat unathletic smart girl who everyone teased. Now, 20 years later, I'm...
...the fat unathletic smart woman with no husband, no kids, a mediocre job, and questionable prospects.
What's worse: there's a memory here. (Of course, with me, it's stranger if there ISN'T a memory connected with something. Amnesia, I often think, would be a blessing for me.) The night of the 10th reunion was my first night with JP. I remember lying there afterwards, thinking if those assholes from 8th grade could see me now, they'd flip. Back then, I was absolutely sure that by the 20th reunion, I would be the most amazing thing there....me and JP, swooping in together, trailing fame and decadence behind us.
Instead, I'm going alone; borrowing my mom's car because the truck spent all last week in the shop and LJ needs to make up for lost income. I'll go out to Mom's, endure her fussing about my looks and my hair; the inevitable "You're wearing THAT?" conversation, and "Aren't you going to put on some makeup?" I'll end up spending the night at Mom's, instead of here, because she won't want to drive me home at that hour and won't let me take the bus. And so tonight, instead of being in the one place that might actually soothe me after a night of reminiscing about times mercifully past, I'll be in my little pink room, alone, wondering what might have been, if only things had turned out just a little different.
Or maybe I'll be in my little pink room chortling with glee because all the cheerleaders I didn't like have married all the football players who didn't like ME, and the girls are now fat and bitchy and the boys are all balding and defeated, and everyone but me works at Wal-Mart and has seven bucktoothed heathenish children to contend with.
Hey, a girl can dream, can't she?
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