20 Years.

I’m in the midst of planning our twentieth reunion. 

From high school.

As in, I graduated from high school twenty years ago. 

Two thoughts permeate my brain.  One, how is that even possible?  Two, my best friend is a hoarder.

So, I should tell you that one of my very best friends moved back to Ohio this summer.  She has lived in Florida for my entire marriage and almost all of the time I have been with Dave.  She has seen my kids grow up through pictures and visits twice a year.  I still sometimes forget that she is here permanently.  It is weird and wonderful to have her a three minute drive away.  It’s bizarre to be able to call her and ask her to come over in the middle of the week.   When we do get together, it feels a little like vacation Natalie, home for just a minute.  Let’s pack everything all into one week of shopping and dinner out and fun!  Woooo! 

Dave just keeps saying, “Well, you DO have a lot of time to make up,” and sending me on my way.  I think he secretly loves it because Natalie tells him all kinds of stories about Fun Michelle.  That is what we call me, in the late nineties.  Fun Michelle are the stories my children won’t hear until they are old and planning their own 20th reunions.  Hopefully.

While we’re on the subject, most of our reunion planning meetings go like this,

HOW is it possible that we have been out of high school for twenty years?

It can’t be twenty years.  Don’t you feel like we’re supposed to still be twenty-two?

Maybe late twenties, max.

Do you think so and so will come to the reunion?  I wonder what ever happened to so and so.

Remember when so and so did that thing in high school that was hilarious?

Remember when you dated so and so?  Ahhhahahaha! 

Well at least I didn’t date so and so!

We were such idiots.

SUCH idiots.

We didn’t get anything done!

Totally, but I laughed so hard, my face hurts.

Worth it.

We also have the added bonus of Natalie memorabilia.  Now, I have a box of stuff from grade school and high school and college.  You throw in your senior pictures, some old grade cards that your mom saved, and a year book or two, right?  Pretty typical?  I feel like a lot of people have that box.

Natalie takes it to another level. 

She has receipts from a store where we used to work, with the cashiers’ names circled.  Did we really need to know that you bought a salad and cheese from Julie in 1993?  Probably not.  How about ticket stubs from movies she went to with names scribbled on the back… it’s important to remember that you, Jay, and Abby went to see Jurassic Park, twenty some years ago.  Have I mentioned every award and certificate she was ever given?  There is a folder full, people.

Oh, I can already hear her yelling at me while she’s reading this.  She’ll tell me it’s not fair if I don’t tell you that her parents just moved and so they went through everything that was packed away there.  She will protest that she was just keeping all of this for our twentieth reunion.  For this very occasion.  She will try to convince you, THAT was the reason she had two copies of everything from our prom program to our commencement announcement.

I maintain that the ticket stubs speak for themselves.  And I am going to wear this 1994 vintage broomball beauty, pinned to my sweater…

Just so you all know, Nat is the best sport in the universe and gave her blessing for this post.  By blessing, I mean, she sighed and told me that she was going to tell you all that we’re only friends because she let me cheat off her in pre-calculus class our junior year. 

Clearly, math is NOT my forte, but choosing best friends is.