Reunion

I braved my 20th high school reunion last week, and it was there I realized what a terrible small talker I have become. I've never been great at it, but since my mom got sick (and probably since my sister got cancer) I just don't have a ton of patience or ability to talk about nothing. Also, very simple questions from people you haven't seen in 20 years, such as "Where do you live?" opened up small mine fields for me to traverse.  I guess I could have just said, "In Beaverton, with my parents," and left it at that, but did I mention this was my high school reunion? Yeah. There was no way I was letting people think I was living with my parents for no reason. Petty, yes, but honestly, what would you do? So then I would say it, "My mom's sick" or "I'm helping take care of my mom" or "My mom's dying. Brain cancer." Which, not surprisingly, tended to bring the conversation to a screeching halt. It was then I realized again that her sickness has so dominated my life these last few years that many days, I don't feel there are any other topics I can speak intelligently about. This makes it hard to talk to strangers, or even virtual strangers. (I am reminded of a conference I went to years ago, when the writer Pam Houston was discussing what topics people are drawn to write about, and she mentioned that for the writer Cynthia Ozick, the Holocaust was the only topic she wrote about; to her, there is nothing else. So at least I can take comfort in knowing I'm more fun to hang out with than Cynthia Ozick.)

But back to small talk and virtual strangers. This is what I was surrounded by the first hour or so of my reunion, in a hotel bar, and I felt like I was back in high school. Dark, awkward, not quite fitting in, and I thought, "Holy shit, this was a terrible, terrible mistake. Why I am I sitting in a hotel bar with virtual strangers from high school, with no established career to speak of, no husband and no children, when my mother is dying? (Although having a hot, sweet boyfriend helps. Thank you, hot, sweet boyfriend.) I must have been drunk when I agreed to come to this nightmare." (As a matter of fact, I was. Last fall, I saw two old friends, Bridget and April, and we got pretty drunk and swore we would all go this thing together. They were both otherwise occupied for that first hour, and I was cursing their names.)

Anyway, just as I was texting Matt that I'd made a terrible mistake, I saw April, along with two other old friends, Heather and Amber.  I sprinted to them, spilling my martini, and not caring. "Thank fucking god," I said, and after a couple of warm hugs and smiles, and questions about my mom, I knew everything was gong to be ok.  And it was, amazingly enough. For the next few hours, anyone I got a chance to talk to felt just like I had that first hour, like "What in the fuck am I doing here? I've had like a whole life since high school and now I have to talk to all these people I barely recognize?" And then we laughed and laughed, because the reunion experience is about the weirdest thing ever.  Facebook does make it somewhat less painful, but still.

I stuck with my old friend Bridget most of the night, as we vowed to be each other's wingwomen, and I have to say, we did a damn fine job. (She recognized less people than I did. Let's just say we both graduated early from high school. I think people would expect me to write snarky things because of this, but I'll tell you something: everyone was so genuinely nice and exceptionally kind, I have nothing snarky to report.) What shocked me as the evening wore on was how many people came up to me and told me they read my blog and loved it and/or asked about my mom. People I hadn't seen in 20 years (or close to that); people I had no idea were reading. I was honestly totally blown away and touched beyond belief -- and gloriously, I didn't have to worry about the small talk.

At some point, I told Bridget about my awkward pre-reunion experience, and she hilariously said, "Jesus, Mims, you can't just open with 'my mom's dying'! I mean give people a couple of drinks at least." And she was right, so the next girl we talked to didn't know about my mom, so I didn't mention it, just talked casually instead about how I would be relocating soon to be with my boyfriend in California. As we walked away, I elbowed Brigit and said, "See? I didn't tell her my mom's dying." "Excellent job," she said, "just terrific."  (We'd had a conversation earlier with a former classmate who was trying to work in the word "terrific" as much as he could that night, and we sort of took on the challenge as well, so she might have been overstating her position just a bit.)

At the end of the night, a small group of us walked to a bar for one last drink. Somehow, we got on the topic of the Rhythm B's, which was in my time, one of the coolest thing a girl could be at Beaverton High School (if you weren't a basketball or soccer star). Strange that a girl like me who, a person who rarely smiled from sophomore to senior year, would want to be on a drill team that involved fishnets and pom-poms, but there you have it. I tried out two fucking years in a row with no success, and it turns out Bridget had too - although neither remembered that the other had.  Heather was with us, and she had made the squad, and as we talked I was reminded that she (secretly) helped me with the routines, all to no avail. (A shout out to McCrae on that one.)

And then Bridget said the most brilliant statement I've heard in a long time, something to the effect of, "God, can you imagine, just being able to do those routines, achieving that kind of precision and perfection? What that would have meant?" And I did know, as I remembered being so jealous of Heather for achieving this thing I longed for, which I thought would instantly turn my miserable high school existence into an amazing one. 

It would have meant too, that we could have metaphorically mastered our messy lives.  Of course, it wouldn't really have allowed us to master anything, but it seemed like it at the time. Thinking about it, I felt so immensely relieved that I no longer long for those kind of neat corners, that kind of control, something beyond myself to make everything ok. Sure, it would be nice if my life had happened in a little straighter line, but then again if it had, I wouldn't be me, and after wrestling with my limits and limitlessness for so many years, I wouldn't want to be any different. As a result, I will probably continue to suck at small talk, because the reality is simply this: My mother is dying, and it is incredibly messy, beyond imperfect, complicated, gorgeous, stunning and everything in-between. It's a part of who I am now, and there's nothing I can or want do about that.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, a pic of me and Ma that night: