High School Musical 10

Memory Lane changed route and created a path through my living room.

It all started with a surprise visit from our friend AB. She works just down the street from our place as an all important lawyer, so she stopped by to say hi to us little people.

Did I mention she’s gorgeous? Because she is, as you can clearly see. She might shoot me for posting this picture of her, but whatever. She’ll have to get over it.

She’s actually one of my sister’s best friends, which automatically made her a big sister to me. She’s been a great friend to me. When I in the process of moving to a place of my own, I didn’t have a place to really stay in, so she let me sleep at her place almost every night over the course of six months. And she didn’t charge me a thing. She’s also incredibly intelligent and hil-a-rious. She always has the funniest stories to tell, which get me laughing for a good 10-15 minutes. Conclusion: she’s awesome-o power.

So anyway, she stopped by to say hi and oogle over my new finger bling and catch up since it’s been a few months since we’ve been able to hang out.

Randomly, I saw her pick up something from the bottom shelf of the coffee table.

So what was she reading exactly?

………

The Echo. My and REB’s senior yearbook. Did I ever mention that REB and I went to high school together? Because, we did. But, I’ll post an entry about our story another time (it’s a good one too, so I’ll do that some time soon if I remember).

The Echo brings back a lot of memories of high school. What hit me, though, was that our 10-year high school reunion is next year in 2011. Yes, we graduated in 2001, so we are young’n's, but still. I can’t believe it’s been almost 10 years since I left that place.

They weren’t the happiest years of my life either, but it’s just weird to think that it’s been 10 years (well right now, 9). My life has changed quite a bit. I haven’t had some revolutionary, life-changing experiences…but I’d like to think that a LOT has happened since those innocent years of my adolescence.

But it all had to start some where.

There I am, in between Cara and Wael.

I was in no way a “popular” girl. My parents didn’t make a ton of money, I didn’t do the trip to Cancun or Cabo like a lot of girls in our class did each year. I didn’t get a brand new car when I turned 16. Hell, I wasn’t allowed to drive to school when I got my license, so I was the 17-year-old girl who was still riding the bus unless my friends offered to drive me to school. I was still in my awkward years with glasses that took up half my face and eyebrows that looked more like caterpillars growing on my forehead than anything else. Apparently I didn’t know what tweezers were.

Despite all that, I don’t think I was an outcast. I definitely had a lot of great friends who made high school more fun and tolerable (even though I wasn’t really allowed to hang out with them too much outside of school) and I tried to take part in a lot of activities to keep myself busy and keep the college application “well rounded”.

One of those activities was being part of the Spanish Club. I was the secretary, which basically made me a glorified note-taker, but whatever. It was a fun club with a great group of girls.

However, my soul lived in one activity:

Music.

I was a band nerd who played trombone and I was proud of it. I picked up my first trombone thanks to Mr. Young in the sixth grade when I lived in Mississippi. The music program in high school was a complete joke no thanks to the awful band teacher, and it had me missing the band program in MS more and more.

Nevertheless, I stuck with it because I couldn’t imagine putting down that instrument and do nothing.

Marching band, pep band, wind ensemble…I was determined to make the most of it and play my heart out.

Sadly, now my trombone is sitting at home in my parents house, untouched. My love for music hasn’t changed, and maybe one day I’ll pick up the t-bone again and play the 1812 Overture like no tomorrow.

Regardless, it’s weird to look through this thing and think how things have changed. How I’ve changed.

Where do you see yourself in 10 years?

If someone told me I’d still be in Michigan after 10 years, I’d have laughed in their face. I had it set in my mind that I was going to move to some place far, far away from that town and those people, and start a life of my own with new friends and new people.

Part of me wishes I weren’t in Michigan. But the other part of me realizes that things happen for a reason, whether they’re in our “plan” or not. I’m incredibly happy with how things have turned out for me: I graduated, went to college, studied my butt off, graduated from college, got a job, enjoyed life, traveled to some amazing places, kept the friendships that matter to me, made some new ones, and re-met the most amazing guy ever who, as it turns out, is kind of crazy about me (so much so, he put a ring on my finger asking if we could spend our lives together).

Times definitely have changed. But for me, I think they’ve changed for the better.