hollywood housewife

high school reunion, part three

This week I'm sharing three perspectives on the decision of whether or not to attend a twenty year high school reunion. All three voices are from the same high school in a small town, so the circumstances (school, town, class, dynamics) are roughly similar. And yet each approach to this event was different. Read Part One and Part Two.

This is a guest post from my oldest friend Andy. You might remember him from Dear Drew.

We are built in layers. I mean, I know that’s not a novel idea. I’m not offering some unique insight to life here that’s never been illuminated. I am sure it’s been detailed by way smarter people and explained with exquisite clarity and way-more-clever-than-I-can-ever-come-up-with metaphors, like wallpaper or cake (see, that’s the best I can do).  Honestly, though, it’s the best explanation I have ever found on how to describe myself, my identity, and my experiences. 

Maybe the layers are built with time, every passing year adding a new one, or maybe they are built on moments, like a wedding or the birth of a child. Maybe it’s all of the above. Outer layers tend to be built tough and opaque, especially in our youth, yet seem to be the easiest to peel off; inner layers are hardly visible and harken to earlier days and experiences. I’m rather agnostic to all the deeper meanings and origins of the layers, but what I do know is that I possess my own unique set. True to form, many of my outer layers have changed significantly over time and experience, some of the inner layers have not. Many of my new outer layers I have purposefully rebuilt to be more transparent so my inner layers could shine more readily though. I say this is probably the process of growing up. This is how we age and mature. We change some layers, and let others shine through. Maybe it’s for the better, or for some it could be for the worse, but our layers change, evolve and mature.

I wanted to return to my high school reunion for the simple purpose of allowing my new layers to be seen, ones that I thought more accurately allowed what lies underneath to shine through and ones that much more significantly were connected to me. New layers that were not there 20 years ago, not even 10 years ago, but core layers that always were. I won’t beat around the bush here, transparency is something I strive for in my adult life and truth, as the good book says, sets me free so the plain truth is that after high school, I came out of the closet.

While this story is not about that moment per se, it is central to the understanding that I hid a very significant part of myself from people who in many ways were like extended family (as such is the case when you grow up in a small town where high school classmates are also your pre-school classmates). Overall, my memories of my childhood were warm and happy, and my impression of my classmates were positive and benevolent, but was it really me they were seeing? So it was important that I revealed a truer me to them, and by that, I don’t mean making a political statement or flaunting a lifestyle, but instead, showing a core self that may not have been so obvious 20 years ago. That they saw in me confidence and contentment, joy and happiness, and a true conviction for a life lived with a sense of purpose and direction.

I don’t know in hindsight how successful I was in achieving that purpose, but something else happened entirely that caught me by a huge surprise. With all this build up on how I was striving to be really seen, what struck me most was what I saw instead. I saw people that were confident and happy, purposeful and directed, and completely pleasant and content in life. Overall, they were just a great joy to be around.

A successful reunion can be that way I guess. Maybe it takes 20+ years to get there, but those exterior high school shells do at some point melt and what’s left underneath is something quite common and quite human, a connection that is rather more the same than we ever expected.

I guess in the end, in an event that classically thrives on the concept of being seen, I ended up seeing the one thing that maybe only this special group of people could show me. People, who literally were with me at the same time and space when my core layers were being built. In the end, I saw me. 

 

high school reunion, part two

This week I'm sharing three perspectives on the decision of whether or not to attend a twenty year high school reunion. All three voices are from the same high school in a small town, so the circumstances (school, town, class, dynamics) are roughly similar. And yet each approach to this event was different. Read Part One.

Disclosure: The three perspectives I'm sharing on the blog this week are all friends from my teenage years, all graduates from my same high school. A few grades ahead of me, they are discussing their decisions to attend or not attend their twenty-year reunion. This series came out of a conversation we had together.

Part II comes from Jaime. Jaime decided early not to attend her reunion, mainly because of her daughter's long-scheduled sporting event. Of everyone, I was the most surprised by this decision because Jaime was the pom squad captain and valedictorian of her senior class. If anyone can consider high school to be a raging success, in my mind it would have been Jaime. I figured who else could feel more nostalgic and sentimental?

And yet, Jaime's decision not to go to the reunion weekend wasn't resolute. She wasn't, as she describes, making some grand point. In fact, she told me later that her teenage accolades and accomplishments didn't even enter her mind. She insisted that her approach to the reunion wasn't all that worth noting, but I disagree and really wanted to share it here. Because it seems like the people who were bullied in high school or had an otherwise miserable experience, and understandably refuse to go to reunions, are perhaps the minority. I think a lot of people who don't go simply feel like Jaime:

(This is transcribed from a voxer conversation, and has been lightly edited for clarity.)

high school reunion, part one

This week I'm sharing three perspectives on the decision of whether or not to attend a twenty year high school reunion. All three voices are from the same high school in a small town, so the circumstances (school, town, class, dynamics) are roughly similar. And yet each approach to this event was different.

This is a guest post from Megan Tietz, former writer at Sorta Crunchy, current host of the podcast Sorta Awesome.

Sentimental and nostalgic by nature, I've always been enamored by the idea of a reunion.

Tell me your life story, and I'm a happy girl. The chance to see and hear how life has played out for people I've known for many years has always been an invitation I couldn't resist. My husband's twenty year high school reunion was last summer, and he had zero interest in attending. I poked and prodded and tried to change his mind ("aren't you curious? don't you need to know what everyone is doing?" "I'm pretty sure that's what Facebook is for."), but he was resolute. I shook my head and quietly determined that we would go to mine.

But late last December when I got together with my closest high school friends and the topic of the class of '95 reunion came up, I felt a pit in my stomach.

I was surprised to discover that this event I had been so sure I would relish being part of had become the source of not a small amount of anxiety. On Facebook, a group formed to begin the discussions of and preparations for the reunion, and one of my closest friends was spearheading the cause. But as the months went by, I just could not quite commit to going.

Finally with just a few weeks left before the big day, I knew I had to decide. I asked close friends what they thought. Had they gone to theirs? Should I go to mine?

Surprised by my hesitation, Laura pressed for an answer on why this was even a question for me. It's not a long trip to our hometown, I didn't have any other plans or obligations, one of our best friends was a big part of putting the whole thing together. What, she wondered, would make me even entertain the thought of skipping out?

I stammered and stumbled over words until I finally landed on the real issue: I'm not happy with the way I look. Which as most women know is code for I'm fat. But in the age of body positivity, we really aren't supposed to say fat anymore. And because I'm raising two daughters who even in elementary school are starting to look at their bodies critically, I've eliminated that particular f-word from my daily vernacular.

all of life's metaphors

In five summers on the lake, I've never done anything in the water except tube. Our boat is specifically made for wake surfing, The Gorilla's favorite water sport, but I've never tried it. Two of the summers I was pregnant, but the other three I've been too scared. Growing up spending every weekend at the lake in Oklahoma, I was made to water ski, even though I was terrible and hated it. It's become the family joke now, but being pulled behind the boat bubbles up every ounce of failure and humiliation.

This summer, I dunno. I tentatively told my husband I wanted to try it. Weeks and weeks ago I said that. He never pushed, but every few days he would ask if I wanted to take the boat out and try. I always had a good excuse or politely declined. Today, just a few days before we're headed home, and mere hours before a group of houseguests descended upon us, we went out.

The Gorilla and I were alone. I've watched him teach dozens of people over the years so I knew the lingo and the form. I strapped on a life jacket and jumped in the warm water before I could talk myself out of it.

The first few tries were epic disasters. I drank a gallon of lake water and now have a wide bruise on my inner thigh. From the driver's seat, my husband shouting encouraging words like "pooping stance!" and "use your heels!" and "you've almost got it!"

I did not "almost got it."

The first few times I was optimistic, but after the 10th, 11th time, I was exhausted and tears of frustration pricked at my mascara-smudged eyes. My inner monologue said I wasn't strong enough, wasn't coordinated enough, and the one time I did get up I panicked at the success and fell immediately.

The Gorilla tried to talk me out of taking a break, but finally I insisted. I wrapped a tropical towel around myself and shrunk into a corner of the boat, trying not to let my athletic husband see my disappointment. He, on the other hand, was crowing. "You've almost got it!" he said. "You can do the hardest part, you're just millimeters away from settling into The Zone."

It didn't feel that way to me. The hardest part didn't feel like the hardest part (nor did it feel mastered), and what he deemed the "easy" part seemed impossible.

We drove around for a bit, checking out lake houses and talking about the kids. After about 15 minutes I looked at the time and knew that it was now or never. He was going to make me try again, and if I didn't want to do it with an audience watching, this was my chance.

The first time back out, my mental game was still off and I flipped right over the board. The next time, relaxed and already praising myself or at least trying something new, I got up and stayed up.

And stayed up and stayed up. I stayed behind that boat for ten minutes. The Gorilla cheered and took phone video and was probably grinning bigger than I was.

Finally I let go of the rope. As the boat made the big loop to come back, I felt the emotion well up like an air bubble. I was sobbing before The Gorilla made it all the way back and, knowing my heart, he laughed when he saw me there in the water. "At least get up on the platform to be emotional," he said.

He tugged me up by the shoulders on my life jacket and hugged me while I cried. We both knew I wasn't really crying about wake surfing. Childhood stuff, and frustration relieved, and pride, and pure, happy exhaustion poured out. I'm that girl who never learned to suck her tears back in.

I can't believe I did it, I said over and over again.

My husband laughed and patted me through my puffy life vest.

I can, he said.

carrie ann, miracle girl

As you read this story, I want you to know it has a happy ending. These photos are all from this summer.

It defies belief that just 18 months ago our family sat in a gray hospital room, quiet except for the steady whir and beeping of machines, keeping vigil over our beautiful Carrie Ann as she lay in a coma.

It was December 2012, and I thought it was going to be my first Christmas in California. Instead, when my sister Dawn called unable to speak the news the doctor had relayed, the kids and I dropped everything and hopped a flight to Oklahoma that day. Six-year-old Carrie Ann - my sister’s youngest of four - was strapped to machines that kept her breathing. We spent a week that way, Dawn and I taking turns sleeping in chairs and ordering all of our holiday gifts from our phones.

A friend brought lunch, others came to pray, and each time I met the visitors in the lobby, I had to blink hard into the sunlight. A childhood friend was a nurse on another floor of the Oklahoma City hospital, and one of my best friends who is a surgeon made the late night drive just to speak to the local doctors and put the information to us plainly. We saw it then and know it now, that even in this very scary time we were personally well taken care of.

just a boy and a girl in a little canoe

My nieces and nephew are halfway through their month-long terms of summer camp, the same camp I attended for ten years of my childhood. (Remember when I went back to visit last year and it provided some much-needed healing?) I sing my kids songs from this camp all the time, many of them making no sense out of the context of bunks and zip lines, but we sing them anyway. One in particular gives me pause.

Just a boy and a girl in a little canoe with the moon shining all around.

And as he plied his paddle, you couldn’t even hear a sound (no sound!).

So they talked and they talked ‘til the moon grew dim,

He said “You better kiss me or get out and swim!”

So whatcha gonna do in a little canoe with the moon shining all around?

At that point, factions of little girls start screaming their answer to the “Whatcha gonna do?” question.

There is the “Staaaaaaaaaay in the boat! Pucker up, pucker up!” refrain.

I mean, really. Who are these girls' mothers?

There is the classic “Swim, baby, swim, dontcha give in!”

I like the idea behind this, but doesn’t it seem a little unnecessarily exhausting? How far is the shore do you think? No need to martyr oneself.

Lastly, there is the “Staaaaaaaaay in the boat! Push him out! Push him out!”

This is a little more my speed. I don’t want to get all angry woman on you or anything, but what sort of man requires kissing before he’ll paddle? I think it’s illegal in most states. So while I don’t normally condone violence, in this case it might be justified.

Before I send my daughter off to a sleepaway where they teach totally suspect songs about kissing in canoes, these are the foundational issues we must get straight.

*

FYI: I hear they still sing this song, which is good. It's very camp-y. They do not, however, still sing a wretched one about the Titanic and sharks eating the captain's head. (My kids know every word.)

 

photo by Linda Tanner via flickr

emily is a 2013 boston marathon runner with a medal

The Boston Marathon finish line bombs and Texas fertilizer plant explosion has made for a very difficult national week. The news is so hard to follow, and when they don't know anything for sure they just speculate, and then when they do know something for sure it's terrible news. I'm sure we're all weary of the coverage, it's hard not to break into a million pieces. But I want to honor the stories, I think that sharing first hand accounts of these days shape history.

My friend Emily was a runner in Monday's 2013 Boston Marathon. Her story will bring tears to your eyes.

I have always wanted to run the Boston Marathon. Every year for as long as I can remember I have gone to the Red Sox game and then out to Boylston Street and watched the end of the Marathon. It is a Boston tradition. It was my tradition. After watching last year’s runners in 85-degree weather, I told my husband that next year I would run.

I trained for 3 months in rain, snow, wind, and 20 degree weather. I missed snowboarding trips, and when I did go, instead of drinking I was running. My motivation was knowing that on April 15^th I would go across one of the world’s most famous finish lines.

have faith, part VII and epilogue

...continued from Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, Part V, and Part VI.

It wasn’t true, you know.  I did care what the Bible said.  But I had believed for so long - and verbally espoused - certain views about homosexuality and now they were being challenged. 

Because when my dear friend told me he was gay, I knew beyond any shadow of a doubt that it wasn’t his choice.

And if I didn’t believe that one thing about my faith, what else didn’t I believe?  The girl from another denomination who told me I was going to hell, the boyfriend who tried to pray my personality into more submission, the Christian boss who tried to enforce a bedtime...it was too much.  Once I started I couldn’t stop giving voice to the hundreds of doubts and inconsistencies I saw in my religion.

And so I pressed pause. 

A year or so went by.  I didn’t think about the hard stuff.  I decided that no part of me believed that my friend who was born gay and my friend who was born Jewish was doomed to burn in eternal hell.  Now that that was out of the way, I pressed pause again. 

I married the kindest and most generous man I’ve ever met, something that most people find hard to believe because everyone knows Jesus doesn’t approve of potty humor. 

When I was early married, I tried a church in my neighborhood that was known to be fairly liberal in its teachings, but a young-ish guy came up and tried to welcome me.  I hated that so I never went back.
If it seems like I’m skimming over years here, it’s because I am.  “Pause” lasted for a long time. 

When I was pregnant with my daughter, I realized that some of the sadness I was feeling wasn’t just hormonal, but part of the ache of missing my faith.  My spiritual pause hadn’t been barren, I never felt separate from my God.  I still prayed a little.  But I was no longer sure of how realistic it was to have a personal relationship with the Creator.  A Lord who granted parking spaces and favored certain nations and sports teams seemed ludicrous to me now. 

Then a couple of things happened.  One of the most beautifully faithful people I know told me that she believed our friend was born gay, too.  Another friend of seemingly unshakable beliefs told me that she thought women were meant to teach in the Church.  I stumbled across a few blogs and then whole books written by people about my age who loved Jesus, but were having a hard time reconciling what we know in 2012 with the intricacies of an infallible Bible.  I wasn’t alone.

Hiding my head in the sand about my doubts had made me think that everyone else was still operating with their youth group faith.  I hadn’t give people enough credit to see that everyone, by my age, had experienced doubts and hurts.  It was freeing, finally, to see the gray.

have faith, part VI

...continued from Part I, Part II, Part III, Part IV, and Part V.

Towards the end of college, I fell in love with someone who did not share my adoration of Jesus.  This was the first time that had happened.  Subconsciously I was probably looking for someone who would give my heart a rest, but at the time he seemed to come out of nowhere. 

I loved him, and I think he loved me back, and we talked too much about our differences while heralding the ways in which we were the same.  He felt like a fit for where I was going, literally.

After my Europe experience, I was itching to move just as soon as I got my diploma.  I told anyone who would listen that Oklahoma was no longer for me.  I had friends who expressed interest, and the boy was on board, and we all had very grand plans.

Until he dumped me.

have faith, part V

I'm telling a story this week.  I promise I only do this a couple of times a year.  The topic was picked my the HH facebook members and it is the backstory of my faith.  You can read Part I, Part II, Part III, and Part IV.

*

“If you feel it pressing on your heart, sign up for our mission trip this summer.”

But I don’t want to go to a third world country, even in the name of the Lord.

“God just laid it on my heart that you’ve been spending time with the wrong kinds of people.”

But these people are good, strong of character, and they’re teaching me about life in a way I needed to learn.

“You can’t associate with him outside of this space because he’s a man (leader) and you’re a woman (follower).”

We were just talking.  I swear.

My parents had worried I would get liberal ideas from my english and philosophy professors, but my need to explore another way of thinking came not from the classroom but from people I knew.  My world had become so one-note, with strange sets of rules that didn’t seem cultural or Biblical, that I felt like I was suffocating.

I sought out worship with strangers, driving an hour to go to church in my jeans.  I wanted to learn new things and unlearn everything I was discovering all at the same time.

Somewhere along the way I fell madly in love with a man who was called to be a preacher.  But I didn’t want to be a preacher’s wife, and marriage was the only direction we were headed, so I broke our hearts with a finality that left us both limping for a long time afterwards.