Class of '88:

Blog, or ride my bike? Blog, or clean the house?
Hmmmmmm...
I'll try and do them all, but hopefully not at once:

Words can't adequately express how peculiar it was to be in a room filled with familiar strangers; all hopeful, smiling, looking to make a connection with someone else who remembers them as they were in ways they probably can't any longer.

At first I felt somewhat paralyzed with the same fear that's kept me on the periphery all these years, until I found my own personal social butterfly to help me work the crowd....
And you know what?

People remembered me.
Seriously, PEOPLE REMEMBERED ME, and they didn't run screaming in the other direction.

Let me preface that statement for a moment, to explain that I was a most complicated critter back in the day, waaaaay more than I needed to be. And it was a stumbling block, much as it is now.
Being shy takes on many forms: we had our fair share of mousy girls who hid themselves thru conventional means, but I took the alternate approach, shrouding myself under a facade that was in-your-face and faintly whispered "leave me the @#$% alone".
Sad to say, it worked.

So again, the experience of being there last night, opening up to the people, putting myself out there, was exciting and interesting yet made me SAD.

Sad because they were wonderful, because they had so many things to share:
Families; tales of lives off and away, here and there; things they're doing; hopes for the future, who they were in the past.
And sad because I missed so much when I had the opportunity to know them, and didn't.
It was great to see that there was something to like in each and every one of them, as if sufficient years have passed to erase those school day boundaries and we could all just be... people.

Yet I also felt hopeful, since throughout the evening I was struck with a singular thought: we have so much life left and so much more to look forward to, because no matter where we are, it's all still a new beginning.
To a cynical old girl like myself, it's a breath of fresh air and something I'm going to hold fast to over the next few years as I work to take my life in new directions.

I'm really glad I went.