Well it's been ten years and a thousand tears, and look at the mess I'm in.

Tomorrow is my ten-year high school reunion. We've been planning it for about a year... well, I haven't had a hand in much of the planning, but it has been being planned. There's a Yahoo! group set up for it and everything. I think we're expecting about 1/4 or so of the class of 435. Maybe more than that. I only keep in regular contact with a couple of people from my class, and neither of them are going, but I am.

In junior high (for us, 7th-9th grade), I was a bit of a social reject. I was kind of a nerd... not all pocket protector or whatever, but I always knew the answers and raised my hand. I was a bit of a Hermione, if you know what I mean. I was teased a lot by football players and popular girls. By teased I mean harassed, I guess. It didn't help that my family won "Farm Family of the Year" right at the beginning of junior high. It also didn't help that I've always been an easy target for teasing.

Still, I had a lot of friends. Junior high was bearable only because I had them. It was still torture, though, and I spent major parts of the eighth grade wishing I had the guts to kill myself. I beat myself up because I thought I was ugly, or fat, or whatever. Ninth grade was a little easier, because I was on the drill team. A little skirt and a jacket with your name sewn on it do a lot for your social standing, and I was glad all of those dance lessons paid off.

High school was another story. There were twice as many of us, since both junior high schools in town combine to make one high school. I became a bit more assured of myself, and the jocks either decided to stop picking on me as much or had too many new people to bother. Plus, I had drama class, drama club, rehearsals, and drama trips to keep me occupied. I also made some different friends. We were known as the weird kids. People thought we were on drugs (I never was, but I can't speak for others). We had crazy colored hair, weird clothes, went to raves, went to punk shows... in a little town in Arkansas this creates a bit of a stir. I still made great grades, was a National Merit Scholar, and graduated 13th in my class of 435. High school was a thousand times better than junior high, but it was still awful sometimes.

I went to college in the area, and a lot of people from my high school went too. It was funny how the social barriers dropped - suddenly, everyone would talk to everyone. Jocks who had hated me would wave and say hi. I actually made stronger relationships with people from my high school who were in my classes in college. Still, after college, I lost touch with most people. I know some of them live here in Dallas, but I haven't met up with anyone.

I wonder what tomorrow night is going to be like. I bought a new dress, Victor's wearing a suit, and we're going to try to have a good time. It will be interesting to see how people have changed or how they have stayed the same. I have changed a lot, I think. I left high school with pretty low self-esteem, and I was definitely a small-town girl. While I still suffer from personal image issues from time to time, I am confident, independant, and very sure of myself. I have had opportunities that many of my class have not had, like traveling, living in a foreign country, living in a huge city, relying on public transportation... while some of them have had families, marriages, divorces - things I really can't relate to.

It's gonna be a trip.