Reunions: A Spanx-free post

With the whole boot thing, and a handy little running hiatus along with it, I've been joking with people at church that I gave up vanity for Lent.  (This is screamingly funny to a Presbyterian, maybe a Catholic; the rest of you can just nod and smile politely until I get to the real post.)

Here's the thing. I have my 20th High School Reunion this weekend.  And instead of heading into the weekend in the best shape of my life with a big half-marathon race a mere 3 weeks away, I'll be limping into the festivities with my fancy cast and sucking in my gut along with the best of 'em.

I totally forgot to crash diet or to get a boob job before this reunion thing.  I even bailed on buying a new outfit.  How's this for profound insight:  I haven't seen most of these people since the Ten Year event.  They won't know whether or not I wore this outfit 6 days in a row last week!  Pure genius.

I did buy new shoes:  the timeless and go-to salve for the pride of anyone who may or may not have gained a pound a week in the time she wasn't running and ate a lot of Easter candy instead who needs a little boost.

But here's another stunning revelation:  the people I will see this weekend are not attending because they've heard rumors that Kirsten Nilsen nee Schneider bought new shoes.  It's true.  In fact, to preserve what little shred of self-dignity I've got left after this boot wearing incident, let's not even reflect on the percentage of people who are [gasp!] turning up to the reunion not even remembering that Kirsten Nilsen nee Schneider was in their class.

A classic yearbook shot, c1990:  Yours Truly is bottom right with my ladies Clare & Andrea.

Which is all to say this:  reunions are so not about me, or about you.  Pride schmide, vanity schmanity.  We are all going to look twenty years older.  Those of us who spent our high school years lifeguarding are probably going to look twenty four years older.  Lisa Lang will probably look as stunning this weekend as she did the day we graduated.  Some people are just like that.

What this reunion will be is about connecting:  revisiting those small moments in high school when you shared a joke with someone in Chem Lab, when you felt profound empathy for someone's embarrassment, when you watched someone navigate a crowded hallway with an inner grace that had nothing to do with their grades or popularity.  Checking in with people who have lived unusual, adventurous and brave lives and admiring their moxie.  Checking in with people like yourself who have lived entirely regular lives, the lives that probably could have been predicted in June 1991, but have made that their richly embroidered story nonetheless.

So remember this, all of you who feel that you don't want to go unless you're 20 lbs thinner, one marriage happier,  2 gorgeous kids richer.  It's not about you, not really.  It's about connecting as human beings - humans who knew each other at our most-raw, least-evolved time of life.  There's gotta be something said for that kind of knowledge.

Girls. Women. Growth.

I had an important conference call last night.  We coordinated schedules, we had a WebEx number for dialing in, we had a GoogleDocs spreadsheet everyone was looking at.

What's that, you say? Have I gone back to work?  Nah.  Just staring down my 20th high school reunion and had a virtual meet-up with some friends to try and get something organized.   [any Class of '91 readers out there? You know who you are, gimme a shout.]

So anyway, we're all there on the phone, taking time out of our individual crazy circus-act lives.  I'm listening to this group of women talk. As we're saying our goodbyes, our thanks guys, we'll catch up next weeks,  I am surprised by the catch in my voice.

Definitely not an attack of nostalgia.  Let's be clear:  I've already told y'all about how the last day of high school was the Official Beginning of my story. 

I sat for a few minutes, trying to figure out why a bit of database figuring and party planning would get me all verklempt.  Here's the thing:  this was a conversation with a group of amazing women.  Women who have done brave things, difficult things, incredibly smart things.

A get-together in recent years.  I'm 6 months pregnant. Maybe 5. Yikes, only 4? Anyway. Aren't the others fabulous?

When you are 16, you find friends to hang with who make you laugh.  Friends who are in your classes, whose parents enforce the same kind of curfews, who might run track or join cheerleading with you.  You don't really pick 'em according to what kind of adult they'll grow up to be.

But I'll tell you:  last night I realized that I enjoy these people more the longer I know them.  I am so profoundly grateful that I can call them friends. That somehow, the years, the careers, the kids and jobs and partners and houses haven't kept us apart: that instead, we keep finding ways to find each other.

It's almost enough to make me excited about re-living the days of Kid n' Play, Depeche Mode and Bel Biv Devoe.  Here's to reunion planning, even if you're not a party-planning kinda gal.

When Your Story Starts

Came across this picture over the weekend, sorting through boxes of old photos:

It's my high school graduation.

My clearest memory of that day is the ache of my cheeks from smiling that much - as broadly as you can see in the photo - for the entire day.  Every single waking moment of it.

Don't get me wrong:  my high school years were pretty happy years - reasonably straightforward, filled with a lot of sports, a group of truly amazing friends (see you Thursday ladies!!), and a couple of great boyfriends.   I had nothing to complain about.

But on a deep, depths-of-the-soul level was always the feeling that there would be more - that I would be more.  I never felt that I wholly fit the skin of a perky suburban cheerleader, and I lived through those years with the vague sense that there was so much more Kirsten yet to discover.

This was not the dark emo-angst that leads one to carve in bathroom stall doors, or start wearing Sex Pistols t-shirts.  (In fact, when I flirted briefly with an all-black goth look my mother just laughed and said it was cute.)  Rather, it was as if I'd been let in on part of a Big Secret, and that all I had to do was bide my time until all would be revealed.

The day I graduated, the thought that ran through my head on a constant loop was this:  "Now is when my story starts.  Today is when everything starts."

I was headed out into the world, and I was so ready to make it mine.  I wanted to travel - and in fact had booked a EuRail Pass to depart a week later.  I wanted to expand every horizon, to live in ways I'd only read about in books.  I knew with total clarity that I was on course to meet the person I'd always wanted to be - that the coming years would be challenging, maybe scary, but they would be MINE.

There is a point to all this reminiscing (beyond it being June, and graduations happening all around me.)

My oldest had a rough time at school this year - the social dynamics of first grade these days are as complex as anything I ran up against as a 10th grader.  I have watched her transform, as a result, into a very different version of my Cecilie-girl - more introspective, more cautious, much more sensitive to the judgement of others.

Part of my heart breaks that she's learned some of these lessons so early.  But part of me wants to tell her about my graduation day - to tell her that there is so much living yet to come.  SO MUCH that she will learn, so much in which she'll triumph AND fail, so many areas in which she'll grow.

What I would tell my 18-year old self that long-ago day in June is pretty much what I would tell my 8-year old now:  every day is when your story starts.  Every day can be yours, on your terms.  All I had done, that June day, was reach the point where I was ready to see, and ready to grow.   I hope Cecilie is ready for that sooner than I was.