Facing, Conquering a High School Reunion

The dreams — and not the good kind — began a couple of weeks before a recent high school reunion party. Anxiety, sweaty armpits and feelings of inadequacy, the same feelings I often experienced in high school, filled each dream and remained after I awoke.

What the heck?

Why should I — a 50-year-old woman who earned a master’s degree, has remained happily married to the same guy for 30 years, raised with my husband two intelligent daughters who didn’t move back home after completing college, and traveled the world both for pleasure and for business — feel anxious about seeing a group of people more than three decades after having left adolescent hell?

Have you figured out yet that high school was not one of the better times in my life?

More often than not, I felt like a social outcast lurking on the fringe of the popular cliques despite having known many of the members all through elementary school and junior high.

Could have been that I wasn’t a joiner in an attempt to be a ‘70s free spirit who shunned organized activities. Could have been that I had an inability to make witty small talk and smart retorts. Could have been my horrible teenage skin and hint of female mustache. Could have been that I was a member of the band and an oboe player. Could have been that my shyness was mistaken for snottiness. Could have been a lot of things, imagined or real.

So after failing to lose five (or 10) extra pounds and to perform the requisite number of pushups needed to sculpt my upper arms, I visited a salon to eliminate stray grays and wax my upper lip, donned a new dress that would properly support and display half-century-old cleavage, and headed to the festivities.

What happened? I had a good time.

So a week or so of reflection time has left me with the following:

• I still am and probably always will be uncomfortable and unskilled with small talk, though that’s nothing new.
• I still am racked with anxiety in social situations, though a glass of red wine helps soften the edge, as evidenced by the reunion Facebook photos in which I am tagged. This is not new knowledge, either.
• I still feel like I’m teetering on the rim of the “in” group circle and more likely to fall off instead of in, but I don’t care much at all. This is a newer realization and one I’m glad has finally sunk in. Takes off the pressure.
• And apparently I had an impressive ass back in the day. Turns out my future husband wasn’t just saying it so he could get a better up close and personal look at it. (Thank you, gentlemen. Your short but sweet reminiscing about my 16-year-old backside made my day.)

Most importantly, I learned there are a lot of good people out there with whom I attended high school. I hope our paths cross again soon and we can have a conversation in a Starbucks or at a cafe, where my social skills work much better.