Getting the back story just right
The Husband’s 20-year High School Reunion is coming up in
August. He has become an architect and a lawyer, a shoe salesman
and a football player in the span of a month. He’s not sure what he
wants to be when he goes to high school. Back to high school.
Getting the back story just right
The Husband’s 20-year High School Reunion is coming up in August. He has become an architect and a lawyer, a shoe salesman and a football player in the span of a month. He’s not sure what he wants to be when he goes to high school. Back to high school.
He’s been going back and forth about going. I told him that all he has to do is make the plane reservation. For some reason, he hasn’t. I hope it’s not because he’s not a lawyer or a football player, or even worse, because he’s not flashing a picture of Cindy Crawford and trying to pass it off as me.
It’s gotten me thinking about my own reunion, coming up next year. To some, it may not look like I even left Gilroy since I live there now. But they don’t know the Back Story.
They don’t know that I got married at 20, moved across the country four months later to Connecticut, to Tennessee four years later, and from there spent two years in Alaska; a whirlwind tour of extreme climates and experiences, only to land on my feet in Garlic Country again, seemingly none the worse for wear. Despite the many bumps and bruises along the way.
Everyone has a story. I am sure The Cheerleader who no one thought would ever get serious is doing nonprofit work and spends her small amount of spare time volunteering. The Guy Most Likely To Succeed might have taken a wrong turn and could be stuck between jobs and relationships.
Nothing is ever the way we think it will be. There are many happy surprises along the way, and some not so happy. It’s just life.
The reunion isn’t designed to tie it all up in a bow. It’s so we can see each other and catch up on the Back Story.
No one was put in a box when we were 18. We all continued to live and age, fall and get up again.
So we’ll show up 20 years later with a little less hair and a little more girth. But before we go, we will try in vain to stuff ourselves into the varsity letter jackets or the dress we wore to Prom in ’87 in all of its puffed-sleeved glory, just to see if we can and then we’ll see how far off the mark we are.
Then, we will shop at Big and Tall and Lane Bryant and go to the reunion, hoping that we aren’t the only ones who did. Armed with pictures of kids and pets and houses in the country, we will pray that somebody recognizes us.
We will fret about the One Who Got Away or The One Who Never Knew We Were Alive. Will he still be cute and talk with his hands in just that way? Will she still have long red hair and a Colgate smile?
We will see our first love across the room. Even if her hair is still that shiny, auburn you remembered from the homecoming dance or as you see him, in animated conversation, charming as ever, you’ll look at your spouse and know you traded up, because you’ve been there for each other through the whole Back Story.
