Always a Bride, Never a Bridesmaid.....

When I was in high school, I considered myself part of a fairly large circle of friends. Sure I had a lot of guy friends, but we had a close-knit circles of girls too. Several of us have remained close even in the 34 (gasp!) years since we graduated.

I went through several "best" friends. I think I isolated myself from some girls because of my close-to-the-point-of-exclusivity friendship with Carol, who turned out to be Trouble with a capital "T," but I was loyal to her. She did more than dabble in drugs, she stole money from the student council, she ran away from home, she was sent away to boarding school. By the time she went away, other girls were firmly ensconced in their own "best" friendships. I was still part of the crowd, but I was tainted.

This is the first time (seriously, I didn't even think of it when I started writing this blog post) it has occurred to me that may be why I was never chosen by any of my friends to be a bridesmaid at their weddings. I served refreshments at their receptions and I played the piano and/or organ (sometimes both in the same ceremony), but I never had the "privilege" of wearing a dress picked out by someone else that was totally unsuitable for me. I never got to hang out with the bride in the basement of the church while the pews filled up with guests. I was never in charge of keeping the bride calm while her mother freaked out and her sister fought with her boyfriend, one of the groomsmen.

When it came my turn to get married, I had both a maid of honor and a maiden of honor, in addition to having both my sisters as attendants. (Are all brides so selfish that they require sisters to come from another state AND pay for an ugly dress to appear in a wedding?) I felt obligated to include the woman with whom I worked and had become good friends, but it was probably horribly inappropriate to have her take such the role of matron of honor in my wedding ceremony. She was considerably older than I, but maybe I felt duty-bound because she had introduced me to my first husband. (She also introduced me to my SECOND husband, and I stopped speaking to her altogether after that.)

My maiden of honor disappeared after the ceremony, and it was only during the reception that I found out both her parents had been in a terrible car accident earlier that day. My wedding wasn't until 8:00 PM (WHAT was I thinking?), and they were waiting for my friend to come to the hospital so she could authorize surgery for her father. She came and went through the ceremony first, and I will never think about that without getting teary-eyed.

Would I have been that good a friend? Thankfully we'll never know. But did my friends THINK I wasn't that good a friend? Could that be why none of them asked me to be a bridesmaid?

I'm not sure why this thought even occurred to me. It's not like I sit up at night and gnash my teeth over why I was never picked to be a bridesmaid. I'm certainly not going to ask any of my friends why they didn't choose me as one of their bridesmaids. Awkward!

But surely one ugly dress wasn't too much to ask.

Absurdity and Irony.....

Because I like to end my blog posts on a positive note (unless it's one of those blog-post-long rants that can't possibly end on a positive note - and I'm sorry for those), I'll go ahead and get the absurdity out of the way first.

Disclaimer: I would be writing about this incident even if it had happened at our own gym. Or Auburn. Or Alabama. Or Utah. Or Michigan. Or any of the other college gymnastics sites around the country. The fact that it happened at FLORIDA just makes my blood boil as opposed to making me say, "Huh. Didn't see THAT one coming."

Almost two years ago I wrote a blog post about not being allowed to take my camera into a college gymnastics meet. I still didn't understand the stupid rule about not being able to have a camera with interchangeable lenses, but I guess theoretically a really smart terrorist (and they frequent college gymnastics meets ALL. THE. TIME.) could conceal a bomb in the inside of the camera. Sure. Let's go with that.

Last night, after I drove 6 hours to get to Sweet Girl's house, she and I drove another hour to attend the Georgia-Florida gymnastics meet. (Yes, I'm a glutton for punishment and can't resist the temptation to go into ENEMY territory to see my team.) We didn't realize Florida also had a baseball game (thankfully not in the same arena, but on the other hand wouldn't that add a whole new element of difficulty to the gymnastics? and the baseball?), and parking was horrendous. We did manage to get into the parking deck before it got full, and we wound around and around and around and around until we were on the very top. (Some folks weren't so lucky and were still searching for parking after the competition had begun.)

It was only about half an hour before the meet began, and anyone who knows me realizes that to me this was almost like missing the first rotation. If I'm not there an hour early, I consider myself late. As Sweet Girl and I approached the entrance, I had my purse open and ready to be searched, as I knew it would be. The guy looked at me (I SWEAR his gaze lingered too long on my Georgia sweatshirt), looked in my purse, and said, "Is that a tablet?"

He was referring to my iPad, which I had tucked into my purse. I was puzzled, but eventually I nodded.

"Tablets aren't allowed inside," he said. I just stared. "Sorry."

I was tempted to argue, but I knew it was fruitless. So I said, as nicely as I could, "Well that sucks" and stomped off. I was going to tuck it into the waistband of my jeans in the back and then go in a different entrance (they haven't stooped to body searches - yet), but I was afraid it would embarrass Sweet Girl. So I marched up the gazillion stairs of the parking deck and returned it to the car, FUMING the whole way.

If you're curious about why I would be so insistent about taking an iPad into a gymnastics meet, it's so that I can keep up with the scores. I can write them down, but on the iPad I have a spreadsheet with formulas built in that know to drop the lowest score from each event. That way I know at any given moment where our scores stand in relation to the other team, what we need to score a certain number, or whether or not we have a chance to win (we didn't).

Seriously? I can't take an iPad into a gymnastics meet? I have no idea what the rule is behind THAT foolishness. I posted it on the gymnastics message board, and so far everyone else has been as puzzled as I.

Enough of the absurdity. It is Florida, after all.

Now for the irony (and this is the happy part)...

When I finally made it into the arena for the gymnastics meet, naturally I was in a fine temper. The lower section was completely full, so I couldn't sit with the other UGA fans. I looked into the upper level and spotted a lady wearing a red UGA shirt, so I decided to go sit near her. Safety in numbers and all that jazz. My very first words to her were, "Never again!" meaning I will NEVER AGAIN go to that particular venue. I fumed and fussed about having to return the iPad to the car, yada yada yada. She asked where we lived in Georgia, and that's when she began to look familiar.

To make a long story not quite as long as it could be, she and I had a class together on the very first day of my very first semester at UGA. It was a pre-calculus class, and that was the last word the instructor ever said that I understood. (Both the honors program and the pre-med program became hazy, distant memories after that summer.) Not only that, but she went on to marry a guy who was in school with me from third grade all the way through to graduation. Smart, smart folks (but they still let me be their friends).

They live in Florida, about an hour south of where the University of Florida is located. Their daughter does gymnastics, so several of the girls and moms from their gym had come to the meet. Unfortunately, they were pulling for Florida and were slightly embarrassed that Cathy and I were cheering for Georgia.

Reconnecting with a friend from almost 34 (!!) years ago took some of the sting out of the whole iPad issue. Now if we can just get her daughter to stop doing that Gator Chomp.

Oh...and she has a blog: Created for Good Works. So you KNOW she's good people.

Sleep Deprived........

Why is it that when we get together with high school friends, we feel compelled to attempt to RETURN to the high school behaviors that nearly killed us the first time around?

Maybe it wasn't THAT bad. But staying up until midnight one night and 1:00 AM the next takes its toll. I got home this afternoon and had the choice of napping in the pool or riding my bike. Guess which one I chose?

I'm not particularly happy with this picture, but it was the best out of the three. I'm on the far right, and I don't think it looks at all like I've lost 35 pounds. What's a girl gotta do to take a decent photograph? Well, she might have started by taking the sunglasses off the top of her head.

Cheryl is on the far left. She and I were the babies of our class, both of us having skipped a grade in elementary school. She looks just like she did in high school, and I'm trying hard not to hate her guts for that. Her father was our superintendent, and she was forced to be a good girl. She probably would have been a good girl anyway. She and her husband (her high school sweetheart) just celebrated 30 years of marriage. When we were in Mrs. Marshall's math class together in 11th grade, Cheryl looked at a calendar and picked out the date she and Donny would get married after college. She missed it by one week. On the day of our trigonometry final, we found out just about an hour before the exam that Mrs. Marshall was going to allow us to use our notes. Cheryl had left her notebook at home. I told her to get in my car and we would go get it. (I was a pro.) Cheryl said, "My daddy will KILL me if I leave school!" I replied, "Your daddy will KILL you if you fail that exam, too." We made a mad trip to her house to get her notebook, and I don't think her teeth stopped chattering the whole time.

Susan is second from the left. She and I were on the drill team together in high school, and she drove her parents' car all the way to Jekyll Island for drill team camp one summer. Susan was always the one I wanted to be able to dress like. Never mind that she was tall and slender and I was ..... not. Susan and I left school without permission one time (detect a theme here?), and she pulled out in front of a car. The car swerved, went up on a bank, and turned over. I assured Susan that yes, she SHOULD stop and see if the other driver was okay (Susan's car wasn't hurt). Something was dripping from the trunk of the woman's car, and she ran up to me, hysterical. "Get my purse out of my car before it blows up!" she screamed. Pardon me, lady, but I don't particularly want to be IN your car when it blows up. (It was Pepsi.) We were only about a quarter mile from the school, and the driver was the daughter-in-law of one of our teachers. This nightmare just got worse and worse. By the time the officer finished the paperwork from the accident, school was out and there were legions of our classmates sitting on the bank watching the proceedings. Susan and I got suspended for two days - the week of the prom. And our spring concert. In the two days we were gone from school, the chorus director inserted a song into the program that we didn't know. (Who DOES that?) During the concert, Susan and I mouthed the words (or some words) and waited for the torture to be over.

Amanda is second from the right, behind me. I wish the light were better in this picture. Amanda also looks just like she did in high school. She is a year older than I am, and she has a ten year old daughter. God bless her! She also has a son who is in college, and she and her husband have been married for a long time. I asked him last night exactly how long, and he told me, but sometime during the evening the number leaked out of my head. Amanda and I also went to church together, so between drill team, school, and church, we were together pretty much all the time. We left school in her car in the middle of the day once (tired of this theme yet?), and due to our pretty rotten luck, we met her mother in the road about five miles from school. Oops. Amanda's parents thought (rightfully so, I guess) that I was a bad influence. They were so trusting of THEIR daughter that their house was where we had all the parties. Out of all my friends, Amanda was the one who had the most dealings with my difficult mother. And she still has nice things to say about her. We both worked for my mother when she owned her own business, and I think Amanda lasted longer than I did. I think she was much better at keeping her mouth shut. I didn't get that gene.

I hope we don't wait another six years to get together again. Last time we gathered at Susan's condo near Charleston, and we had a marvelous weekend. There were four of us that time, too, and six months later one died suddenly and unexpectedly. When Susan and I first got to Amanda's house on Friday, I asked if we could please have a pact that none of us would die after this get-together.

I don't know what it is about high school friends. It doesn't matter how many years we go without seeing each other, we are able to pick right back up where we left off. No matter how close I am to a female adult friend, there is always some awkwardness involved when we travel together or spend the night away from home together. Not so with high school buddies. It's as if the intervening years never happened and we only graduated yesterday.

We pored over yearbooks and then looked classmates up on Facebook. We laughed and laughed and laughed, and I can't wait to get together with those girls again.

She Has Every Right to Be Bitter.....

This blog post is about something that has both touched my heart and disturbed me greatly. I'm afraid I won't even be able to articulate my feelings about it. I tried to explain the situation to Hubby this afternoon when we were walking in the park, but I got too emotional. And I couldn't even come up with the right words to explain how I felt.

I got a message today via that social networking site of which I am a miserable failure of a member. I don't get on there for days (weeks?) at a time, during which time I miss important events in the lives of everyone of whom I am a "friend." When my sister asked whose couch my own daughter fell asleep on last weekend, I had no idea what she was talking about. Miserable failure, I tell you.

The girl from whom I got the message is someone I graduated from high school with. (Yes, I realize that is grammatically incorrect, ending a sentence with a preposition, but that would be the third "whom" in a row, and even I have to draw the line somewhere.) Because she sent it out to so many people, and she said it would later be posted, I feel okay about putting it here. I think it would even be okay for me to be talking about it. It's kind of long, so forgive me, but I didn't feel competent enough to paraphrase it.

If you're receiving this email, then please know it's because I consider you more than a fb friend. I can't think of any more important message than the one I'm about to deliver. Although I HATE generic 'chain' types of emails, this is far from that, I promise. Please just hang with me and read on, and you'll understand. I'm going to make this a fb post soon, and NEED your support - hence, this heads-up email.

Most of you know that my father died November 12, 2010, and that we were not on good terms. In 2004 he made it clear that he had legally disowned me - totally written me out of his will - and, even with a few tries at reconciliation once he got sick, nothing ever happened and I'm slowly making my own peace with it. He claimed to disown me because of the fact that I have chosen to live differently than many - - I have chosen to follow my heart, and it was unacceptable to him.

Well, when the will was probated you can imagine my shock that I WAS mentioned in it, first in fact. Rather than leave me out altogether, he left me the sum of $5 - - obviously meant to be more hurtful than just leaving me out altogether. He then equally divided everything else between Gwen, my siblings, and Gwen's son. The fact that he left this life with such bitterness really makes me sad, and I am so determined to not allow resentment to grow, fester, and dictate my life. There is so much to live for, and I want to enjoy it ALL! I have people like YOU in my life - - my family of choice, and want to always be mindful of my blessings  not losses and pain.

Although I couldn't do much with $5 (not to mention the fact that it feels like poison money), I've decided to do something and hope that you'll join me. I have established an account at the Human Rights Campaign in my father's name. My $5 along with yours can go a long way in making a difference for many. It's a way to turn ugliness into something beautiful, which is what I constantly tell my students we are put on this Earth for . . . to make a positive difference in the lives of others. Please consider making a donation of any amount - - honestly, I feel you're all part of my healing process. The information for donating is as follows…

I love you all - for many reasons, but especially for allowing me to be honest with this and to share my pain. Something beautiful is going to come out of something so ugly, and that makes my heart sing.

I went to school with this girl from third grade all the way through graduation. Our senior class probably remains the silliest on record from our high school even to this date, and Lisa was right in there with the rest of us. I remember her coming to class after lunch one day with her broken flip-flop and singing Jimmy Buffett's song about "I blew out my flip-flop." Sorry....you'd have to be there. I told you we were silly.

I lost touch with Lisa over the years, but I knew she had become a teacher. In fact, she was chosen as the county-wide teacher of the year for one of the very large metro-Atlanta area counties a few years ago. I think that's saying something.

Lisa's mother was diagnosed with cancer when we were in high school. She fought a long, hard battle, but ultimately there was nothing they could do. Lisa and I were both in a pageant/talent contest our senior year, and it was held in November. Lisa made it to the finalists, and she had to answer one of those impromptu questions posed by the judges. Her question? Chosen at random, this is what they asked, "As the Thanksgiving season approaches, what do you have to be thankful for?" Her mother was dying, and THAT'S the question she got? I burst into tears right there on stage. (And before we got out of the building, my mother admonished me for crying, saying people were going to think I was crying because I didn't win. Because clearly I'm that shallow. But I digress.)

I don't remember what Lisa's response was because I was crying and it was more than 30 years ago. But I'm sure it was poetic and elegant (as poetic and elegant as any 17- or 18-year-old in a high school pageant). She didn't win the pageant either, but she won my undying respect and admiration for not crumbling in front of everyone in the audience. Or answering, as I would have been tempted to say, "Hey ass-wipe, is that the best question you could come up with for me in these circumstances?"

I don't understand how a parent can disown a child. Especially not based on her lifestyle. I knew Lisa's father, and I actually liked him. He had a beautiful singing voice; I remember him singing at our church once as a guest vocalist. I wasn't aware he had died, but I don't know if he still lived in this area. What went through his mind when he decided he wanted no further contact with his eldest child? What about her siblings - did they share their father's opinion, or were they caught in the middle?

And while my heart breaks for Lisa, I am absolutely in awe of her resolve. She has every right to be bitter, and I suppose she IS, but she has taken something horribly negative and turned it into a positive. It's the ultimate "screw you" to her father, even though he is dead. And she probably doesn't even mean for it to be that - that's my own take on it, applying what would be my own bitterness to her situation.

I fully intend to make a donation. It isn't JUST because my siblings and I were left out of our father's will in favor of a wife who wasn't even living with him when he died. It's mostly because it's the best way I can think of to let Lisa know just how much I admire her for her actions. I didn't publish the information here out of respect for Lisa's privacy, but if anyone else would like to do so, just leave me a comment and I'll get in touch with you with the information. Lisa is a special person, and if she can maintain her sunny, cheerful disposition in the face of what must be one of the most painful things she has ever experienced, she's a better person than I am.

But I'm pretty sure she already was.

High School Friendships.....

I used to be one of those people like my aunt who feel they should stay connected with anyone and everyone they've ever met. I swear, my aunt still goes to spend weekends with people I think she went to elementary school with.

I have a couple of close friends from high school with whom I've maintained contact over the years. Four of us went to Charleston for a weekend and had a blast, but then one of us died suddenly four months later, so we've been a little reluctant to get together after that.

One of my friends from high school was a girl we will call "Heidi." She was the prettiest, most talented, most popular girl in middle school (only it was called intermediate school when we were there). The first time she called and wanted ME to spend the night at her house, my mother asked me if I had misunderstood. (Example #98155641 of my mother's sensitivity. Ranks right up there with buying me a bathroom scale for my birthday one year.)

But Heidi was a mess. She turned to drugs, stole money from the school (uhhh.....she was the student body treasurer), ran away, got sent to a boarding school for a while, was just generally a mess.

I ran for her student body office (and won), played in the band, was in the Beta club, honor graduate, went to college. I'm not saying I was sweet and innocent, because I was neither, but I just couldn't follow Heidi down that path.

She came to one of my bridal showers. She was married with a daughter, and when I opened her gift, there was no card attached. She claimed it, we all laughed, and then whoever was helping me with my gifts said, "Oh, here's the card" and pulled it out. Heidi ran across the room and grabbed the card, and there was an awkward moment as everyone realized she had regifted something, probably from when she got married herself. My heart hurt for her to think that she wanted to come to my shower so badly, but she probably didn't have money to buy a gift. I wasn't at all bothered by the regifting; I was embarrassed for HER. Hell, the casserole dish was new to me, so what did I care?

Heidi had a strong personality, and it still amazes me that I didn't follow in her footsteps. I wanted her approval, I wanted her looks, I wanted her singing voice. One year for my birthday when we were in about the eighth grade, we went shopping. She told me to sit outside while she went and bought my gifts. I never questioned her. I sat dutifully outside on the bench while she visited several stores.

My mother knew. She had an incredible insight about people and their behaviors, probably as the result of having raised my two brothers. Or perhaps she knew Heidi's kind. Or perhaps she automatically believed the worst of anyone. At any rate, it was years before I realized, or at least acknowledged to myself, that everything Heidi gave me for my birthday had been shoplifted.

We reestablished contact when Sweet Girl was 10. Heidi's girls were 8 and 12, and when we contacted one another we discovered that we lived about a mile and a half apart. Heidi had just gotten her girls back from her ex-husband, and she was at a loss as to what to do with them while they were out of school for the summer. You guessed it, since I was a teacher, I wound up babysitting them every day for the rest of the summer. Putting three prepubescent girls together was disastrous, and my Sweet Girl was right in the middle.

The next time I heard from Heidi was after Hubby and I married. First she made some judgmental comment about my having married Hubby, then she asked if I would take her to see her eldest daughter at the Regional Youth Detention Center. Do you detect a pattern here? A couple of patterns?

I didn't hear from her anymore until a little more than a year ago, when she tracked me down online. She had divorced and remarried, and we made arrangements for me to go see her.

She was/is still a mess. She is a trained surgical technician/nurse, but I think she lost her hospital job due to drug issues. I don't think she's been able to hold down a job since then. She mentioned getting a job in a doctor's office, but she left after only a day or so because they sprayed the building for insects, and she just couldn't take that.

Excuse me?

She called last week the day after my birthday, but we were at the baseball game so I didn't answer. She didn't have the day wrong, she had just been too busy moving the day before to call me. I called her back on Friday, and just carrying on a brief conversation with her exhausted me. She started telling me a story about the autistic son of a friend of her older sister's, and she was hysterical with laughter while she was trying to tell it. I never did understand what it was about. I don't know if it's still drugs, or if she just has mental issues now on TOP of the drugs. She has two grandchildren, and she was trying to tell me about them, but it was just too hard to follow her train of thought. When we started to hang up, she said "I love you" and I said "I love you too," but I felt guilty saying it. I don't even KNOW her to love her.

It feels a little ugly to me, but I simply cannot allow that friendship's embers to rekindle. It needs to die a peaceful death. She is needy even at the age of 50, and she has never been able to take care of herself. Oh, and it's never been her fault either. She is also a user, something it has taken me years to acknowledge. I don't like the fact that I allowed myself to be used by her. Again and again.

Do some people not have that external lens to view themselves as others see them? Or do they make it okay in their minds not ever to grow up, not ever to become responsible, not ever to take responsibility for their lives?

I think in some cases drifting apart is the best thing that can happen.