reunion

my 10 year class reunion was saturday night!

a small group of us met up downtown at coco's for dinner and drinks and a chance to catch up and tell stories on each other...to meet spouses and dote on pictures of our little ones.

there was a moment while we were all sitting together eating that i looked around and really realized that we were in the same room again...these beautifully familiar faces that have barely changed yet are so new all at the same time.

we're married, engaged, divorced, parents, pregnant, doctors, artists, professionals...spread out and planted all over the place.

that's a strange thing to grasp when you forever remember each other being 5 in a tiny country town.

and really one of the gifts of growing up in a small town...of graduating with 45 people that most you've known since kindergarten...is that they become family.

so saturday was really more like a long lost family reunion...a chance to be around just a handful of the ones that really and truly know why you are the way you are...the ones that get your roots because they are their own.

 the ones that saw you fall down the stairs at the assembly in jr high, taught you how to kiss behind the shelter house, know why you were in marching band, saw you through your sweat suit phase, danced with you at homecoming because you didn't have a date...the ones that lived life with you.

it was a measuring stick kind of night...how far we've come and where we're going and who has saw you all along the way.

i have more photos on my facebook...

here's your chance to see a rare glimpse of bar-hopping katie cut loose with her shirely temple!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1798497719856.2095945.1162141043&l=4e69a030c7

be true to your school

 my 10 year high school reunion is in a few weeks!

it's been such a funny process rummaging through old clippings and photos and ribbons....remembering back to days when, in the midst of having absolutely no clue, you thought you had the world completely figured out.

but i guess when your world was as small as ours was, you'd have it figured out too.

i grew up in a tiny town with one school building for all of elementary and jr high and high school.

i graduated with a class of 45 friends i had known since i was 5.

it was such a beautiful upbringing...and it allowed our roots to grow big and deep and strong.

then they tore down my beloved school last year to build a newfangled one with all sorts of bells and whistles...

 a fact my sister amy and i were none too happy about. 

there were talks of chaining ourselves to the building on demolition day....

i suppose i'm a sentimentalist.

and i'm sure it would come to no surprise to all of you that i was annoyingly spirited and peppy and outgoing back in my school days...something i've been a little embarrassed about now that none of that really seems to have mattered one bit. 

but last weekend i got the chance to visit the new school and see some of my old friends and admire decades and decades of old photos hanging on brand new walls.

 and i didn't feel so embarrassed anymore. 

because being apart of something...building on a legacy...even in such a small way, is something to be proud of.

but wouldn't you know they turned the old building into a parking lot?

hmph!

did any of you go or plan on going to your high school reunions?