Totally High School

My twentieth high school reunion is this summer.  I've been putting off my RSVP...until tonight.  While my high school years were 'fine', I don't remember them as the be-all-end-all of life.  I wasn't the smartest, dumbest, cutest, ugliest, sassiest (okay, I *might* have been the sassiest), weirdest (and I was pretty weird) person in my graduating class.  I have no huge desire to go back and prove to people that I am now super smart and pretty.  Because unlike Mary Poppins, who is practically perfect in every way, I'm...me, not even close to perfection, but pretty freaking fantastic.

And there are definitely people I would want to see....but they aren't the people who teased me because of my generous amount of arm hair in Mr. Johnson's social studies class (I shaved my arms when I got home that afternoon.), or the boys who teased me in the common area about being a Carpenter's Dream - flat as a board and never been screwed.  The people I would like to see are the girls who stuck with me through the whole weird journey called high school.  I want to meet their husbands and see pictures of their kids.  Then I get crazy sad because I wish I would have put more effort into my relationships with them when I was younger...but I didn't.  I made other choices.  These 'other choices' are the reason my RSVP says, "No."

To the class of 1990:  I wish for all of you the very best....except for one of you, who I don't.

Oops!

I was on the freeway yesterday and missed my exit. It actually happened twice in the same outing. The first time I missed my exit I realized it right away and was able to take the cloverleaf around and around until I was once again facing in the right direction. It was an easy fix and I even found it to be a little soothing: the ease of the circles, no need to merge, no need to look for my exit or question which way I was headed. I just simply followed the path ahead of me to get back on track...

The second time I missed my exit I wasn't so lucky. There wasn't a cloverleaf and I had to drive about half a mile to the next exit. I didn't even know for sure if I would be able to get back on the freeway after I took it. I made my exit, waited at the top for the light, crossed the bridge, waited for another light, went back down the way I came, and finally hit the right exit.

I thought of it all day. I thought, "Wouldn't it be great if there was a 'cloverleaf' for life?" If we made a mistake or a bad choice we could just circle around smoothly until we found our way again? But...I feel that life is more like my second missed exit of the day. We aren't always sure and we're surrounded by choices to make, some of them clear, some of them not so clear. It can be maddening at times, scary, and frustrating.

In the end, I think we always end up pointed in the direction we need to go.