So.
My 35th high school reunion came and went last weekend, and I didn't attend. I had decided to go, at one point. It would have been great to see this, that, or another person after all these years. Then it became apparent that, out of a class of 500, maybe 25 people were attending. And these people were not my friends, or even my good buddies.
I am positive that if I had gone, I would have been happily welcomed. These folk had not been overtly hateful to me, back in the day, as dozens of others had been.
But, on the other hand, neither had they been there to comfort me when my mother died. The memory of me weeping uncontrollably in class, during a showing of "Brian's Song," not long after her funeral, still lingers. No person, not even the teacher, thought to offer me tissues.
I became quite ill during my final semester of senior year with Grave's Disease and I could not continue school. My mother had had thyroid disease, too.
I cannot recall anybody, save for two friends and my high school counselor, who gave a rat's ass about me or tried to help. (After all these years, my memory may be faulty.)
I never graduated high school. I had surgery, a partial thyroidectomy, the summer of '75, and even my older brothers were absent. Where were they?
I left home for good that August, and still I wonder why I keep looking back, wishing and hoping that I missed something.
4 comments:
It is generous of you to allow that your memory may be faulty, but the emotional wounds are real nonetheless. We all wish for a do-over of our disasters with a way to make the memories less painful; this is being human. If it were otherwise, we'd be mice. We must focus on and cherish the love in our lives now. And I must take my own advice!
Nancy NeverSwept
~hugs~
Hi Fuzzarelly,
Sorry I was missing in action and not on the web for days. (No Baby Yet!)
You know I love you as you are.
Without the past we wouldn't be who we are now.
But we can't live there, in the past. We must scoop up the memories and move forward with them. Use them as a tool of understanding, but not a focus.
Once you use them as a focus you can't move forward no matter how hard you try.
Read the book put don't live the story over and over again. Take the info and move ahead in life.
And not going to your reunion is a great step forward.
(I didn't go to mine for much the same reasons.)
Hugs, Euphoria
I imagine you as so much younger than I am. Which according to my math makes you 26.
I... can't help you on all those former people things. Why do I have dreams about my (now dead) old boyfriend at least once a week? Guilt, because he dumped me for the schizophrenic? And a bottle, just to be clear.
My oldest brother sends me a fruit basket for xmas every year. My youngest brother doesn't answer the phone when I call.
I know. Doesn't help you at all. Let me know if you figure it out.
k
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