I like taking on my fears. I'm still working on aging, parking garages, snakes, driving on Interstate 495 and revisiting high school. I dealt with the last two on that list when I attended my 20th high school reunion solo last month in Northern Virginia at a Reston-area Hyatt.
I didn't know whether I would catch up with my fellow Robinson Rams when the reunion invite arrived in the mail over the summer. I was nowhere near popular. After school, I participated in about 15 clubs and ran cross-country my senior year. Sometimes I even hung out with a few friends, instead of watching "Golden Girls" on Saturday nights. Would my old classmates say how much I had changed? Or would they treat me indifferently like they did back then?
I wasn't sure if I should spend the time and money until my talented student Michelle urged me to go. She had written about her 20th high school reunion in memoir class and told me, "The more time goes by and the better looking you were to begin with, the farther you have to fall. It pays to be average." Hey, I could only go up!
Although I had grown up outside D.C., I had never driven on the Beltway. I had absorbed my mother's fears and had never forgotten about the time she and my brother had witnessed rocks from a truck smash a Ford's front windshield. I experienced smooth driving until I didn't have the required dollar in coins at the Dulles Toll Road booth and had to ask the man behind me for change. As the other vehicles cheered my departure, all of the lanes past the toll booth folded into each other like a Moebius strip. Hyperventilating, I prayed through a 90-degree left-hand exit lined with monster barrels only Raleigh street artist Joseph Carnevale could appreciate, and ended up at Dulles Airport's daily parking lot. Thank you so much, GPS.
Minutes later I crawled my car through a crowded parking garage (see Fear No. 5). I slipped into a sparkly short black dress and secured my gaping décolletage with a golden paper clip from my daily planner. Party on! I started greeting my old classmates, making sure my hair didn't hide my senior yearbook photo name tag.
About 230 alums crowded into the gold and blue-festooned ballroom, many of them doctors, company execs, comedians and lawyers.
The most popular football player hugged me five times saying, "I can't believe it's actually you, Alice!"
And one drunk classmate said, "You were so homely in high school, but now you are beautiful," before she kissed the ground.
I didn't enjoy hearing this backhanded compliment but remembered Michelle's comforting words. Many attendees traveled in packs, and because I went unattached, I networked all evening, making new friends. After reminiscing about parents, teachers, travel and college, I joined the post-party, where they stashed chicken wings and beer in the bathtub.
I realized what my fear had been: I didn't want anyone telling me how much I had changed. I wanted them to see the new me and only her. But they had seen both the clueless girl and the accomplished woman. At that moment I forgave my 17-year-old self for doing the best she could at the time.
On the drive back to Raleigh I gave exact change at another toll booth and bid adieu to 495, my personal definition of hell. My husband urged me to come home soon because our 2-year-old daughter refused to take her nap.
Through this column I've described my journey of change, of letting go of old family ties and of forming newer, stronger ones. Thank you for allowing me to share my life with you, speed bumps and all.
