I wasn’t particularly popular in school and just didn’t know where I fit in.
I tried making friends with different groups…the cool kids, pom-pom girls, the music room, the various study halls, the business center, etc. Nothing really stuck.
The first five years of school, first thru fifth grade, my parents sent me to a parochial school out in the country near our home where all the surrounding farm kids went. I had the fear of God instilled in me and thought that if I looked cross-eyed at someone, I was surely going to hell.
Then our community built a new high school and the old high school became the middle school…sixth thru eighth grade.
So this made a mix of former parochial school kids and kids who came from other public schools who were simply more worldly.
I hugged those locker-lined hallways because I was so scared. This was the late sixties and some kids were swearing and I’d never heard those words before. Some kids were wearing blue jeans and I never owned a pair. I was still wearing my dresses below my knee, white ankle socks, and unattractive black or brown leather shoes. I was a fricking dork.
Most of my friends were the kids I went to school with since first grade at the parochial school who were also trying to find their way in this new world.
By seventh grade I turned the corner and started to blend in with the other kids. Still a little scared. Still being intimidated by the greasers. Still scared of my own shadow.
Once I got to high school I was able to navigate my way thru different groups, join clubs, and the only thing that scared me, and still does, were those greaser girls who hung out and controlled the ‘first floor can’.
No matter how bad you had to go to the bathroom, you didn’t dare go in that bathroom because you might not come out alive. There were no elevators in the school so you hiked up the stairs to use the bathroom on the second or third floor.
Needless to say, I survived. I made great friends, loved high school and all the opportunities it offered more than anything else. I actually looked forward to going to school. My home life sucked so high school became my refuge.
Fast forward to yesterday…fifty years later. A girl I went to high school with and am friends with on Facebook, reached out to me and two other girls from our class a couple of weeks ago to see if we wanted to meet for lunch.
Now, although we’re all friends on Facebook and we all grew up in the same small subdivision, it didn’t automatically make is life-long bosom buddies. We were never mean to each other but the other three girls were the cool kids. I wasn’t.
In fact when Jean reached out to me in the group message about meeting for lunch, I was 100% positive she sent me that message in error. So much in fact, that I messaged her privately and asked if she really intended that invite for me.
Yes, it was for me. Did I all of a sudden become a cool kid?
The four of us met for lunch yesterday and I had the time of my life. Catching up about our marriages, families, as well as the highs and lows in our lives was great. Fifty years ago seemed like yesterday.
We picked up where we left off years ago with the memories of detentions, suspensions, and the ‘smoking lounge’ in the woods behind the school, as well as the teachers who at that time were really one of us. They truly were. Today those teachers would be in hot water.
Over the past fifty years there were several class reunions but none in the last twenty five years.
Our lunch yesterday almost turned into dinner and as we parted in the parking lot we agreed to do this again soon. We discussed slowly inviting one or two other people to the next mini reunion but agreed to discuss this further. A couple of names were tossed around but we’ll figure it out.
Growing up with these ladies and sharing what we did yesterday, almost makes me wish we could turn back time.
Almost. I don’t want to go back to being that scared girl with ugly dresses and shoes who hugged the locker-lined walls.
Back to Basics 