Remember when...

Tonight I attended an event that I expected to be exactly like high school.

I was never big on high school.

I had a dirty Ketel One martini with M before we arrived. I was nervous. Anxious, even.

"I'm not going to our ten year reunion next year." I said.
"Why?" M said.
"Because I'm going tonight. To the dress rehearsal. And that's good enough."

In an emotional sense, I was a high school dropout. I stopped contributing socially in my junior year. I didn't "do" prom. I didn't "do" graduation. I practiced avoidance. A favored tactic of mine and one that would inevitably follow me into adulthood.

And so it was that on a dewy, morning-rained-on afternoon some years ago, I stood, one amongst many, holding on to my cap and diploma. I followed the ceremony by posing for obligatory parental pictures and eating dinner with my awkward bio/step families and then, I went on with my life. I was me. I was a graduate. There was no looking back.

That was nearly ten years ago.

In retrospect I'm glad I had my time away - it gave me time to breathe. Time to appreciate what's here versus what isn't. The best friends I made then are, to this day, the best people I know. We passed notes to in the hallway, folded in various puzzle-like bits and signed "Friends 'til Niagara Falls," and they are seeming to be just that. Family. My Girls. The best I know.

The city, too, seems to have remained the same, but now I recognize it's beauty, charm, and potential. I fight fiercely for it's respect. I love it. Love. Always will.

Some things have changed, certainly. I write more than notes now. And I'm proud of that.

And then there was tonight. The dread creeping up on me. The risk of repeating high school - of feeling it all over again.

And tonight, like many nights in this small-large city, was full of familiar faces - some have changed and are near-unrecognizable and some haven't aged, faltered, or wavered in the decade since we last passed one another in a throng of people. Of course, now we are hustling to the bar, not our locker or geometry class. It is the passage of time. We wear it well, I think.

Tonight, there was more than just reconciliation or reconnection or retaliation. Tonight, there was hope. Familiar faces, unfamiliar faces, young, old, drunk, sober, dancing or standing still, it didn't really matter. We were all there for one reason: to help him. To help her. To give means.

We all knew her in the days of study hall and gym class. She was popular enough. Down to earth. Funny. Athletic. Thin. Cool. And now she's a mother of two. A wife. And she has a child with a disease that will more than likely leave her behind to mourn his passing.

So, there we were, a mass of people with nearly nothing in common except an alma mater and the mere fact that we all wanted to, in some way, partake in the hope for him; a piece of her that will be taken, removed, before it's even had time to take root.

It's a nice feeling to be part of something. A memory, a moment, someone's hope or someone's fate.

It makes me wonder... what's in store?

k.