I'm Not That Old. Am I?

Well, since I completed another trip around the sun yesterday, taking me one year closer to 50, I guess I am.

My 30 year class reunion is this weekend, which is almost as big a slap in the face as staring 50 in the eye. I mean, it feels like high school was just a few years ago, not thirty for God's sake!

I skipped my 10 year reunion, let's be honest, because I wasn't in a very good place. Instead of completing college right after high school. I spent a semester at Fort Lewis in Durango and didn't get invited back for second semester. Something about a 0.0 GPA made them revoke my scholarships and send me packing. So I went home, took my EMT class (4.0 GPA, baby), got married and a year and a half later started popping out babies. I had kids at 20, 21, and 23. Bam, bam, bam, three in a row. I was teaching at Front Range in the EMS department, but kinda sliding under the radar because I didn't have a degree. Rumor spread that anyone without a degree was going to get axed. So, I quit and started at CSU two years or more after my high school friends had graduated. When my 10 year reunion came around, I was divorced with three kids, going to school full time, and struggling to keep my head above water. There was no way in hell I was going to show my face at that reunion.

When my 20 year reunion rolled around, I also skipped that. My life was no longer in a shambles, but Jay and I had just gotten married. I was busy navigating being a newlywed after so many years of being single. I'll admit, I skipped the 20th because I was just being selfish.

But now the 30 year reunion is upon us. I've only kept in touch with a handful of people from high school, and only through FB. I wasn't a part of any one group. I knew who a lot of people were, and people knew me, but the "ride or die" friends I thought I had all but abandoned me once I started dating my ex-husband. My church friends turned their backs on me (maybe not, but it certainly felt like that) for dating someone so different from us. I mean, the ex was not a really great guy - he partied, he drank, he was an ass. But little church girl me thought I could save him. HA! So maybe my church friends were right to turn away from me, but that doesn't make the sense of betrayal any less.

I was going to blow off my 30th reunion. But then I started thinking: my life did not turn out at all the way I thought it would, but the last 30 years have been one hell of a ride. There have been some absolute shit times in the past thirty years, but also some really amazing times and I wouldn't trade any of them for the world. Not even the shit times - they made me who I am.

So, with that in mind, I'm going to take my overweight, middle-aged, freshly tatted up body to the reunion and catch up with other people who have also spent the last thirty years living their lives.