Musings of a High School Reunion

Proverbial wisdom advises one to never meet one's heroes—the experience is usually disappointing, thanks to overblown expectations. Plus, many people's heroes end up being jerks and divas, thanks to the nature of fame.

But, I can't help myself from applying that adage to attending my 10-year high school reunion.

The reunion is set for this November, on the day before Thanksgiving. I'm going to be in my hometown during that holiday week and will have that evening open, so my attendance is not a matter of scheduling. I know of a slew of readily fantastic people who are planning to go, so my hesitance is not based in potential loneliness. And Facebook has made my life visible for all the world, so my flip-flopping is not because I dread the "catching up" between old friends.

I cannot fully decide if I want to go to my high school reunion because I don't know if I'd rather have my former classmates remember 2003 me or 2013 me. And vice versa, if we're being honest.

Although my character has become more impressive during these past ten years, my C.V. has diminished immensely. While so many of my peers are graduating law school or leading exciting lives overseas, I have carved out a nice-for-me, boring-for-others life for myself. Stay-at-home mom of two living in Utah doesn't wow the crowds.

When I was 18, I was involved in every extra-curricular I could squeeze in, I had stellar grades, and I fit in with many different social groups. My personality was explosive and annoying and vibrant. And most of all, I had that body that 28-year-old me could only dream about.

And I imagine that many of my classmates could echo these sentiments; being young is equivalent to being full of promise, and none of us are as young as we used to be.

I was such a wild fan of my friends (and non-friends) during my high school years. If I went to Redlands in the fall, encountered one of them, and discovered that they had become a raging maniac, I imagine that my disappointment would be cataclysmic. Would the past be better left in the past, then?

I had the opportunity recently to reconnect with a dear friend who I had not seen since my high school days; I had heard whispers of his life throughout the years, but being able to ask him questions directly proved the above hypothesis. My memory told me that he was a sweet, gentle guy and reality laid his gruff, distant interior at my feet. I want to cling to that old perception, but the new information keeps poking me in the side.

Do I want to disappoint others in that way? Does the potential disaster outweigh the potential fun of going to a high school reunion? And, even worse, has enough time passed that no one will remember me at all?

Soothing the Savage Beasts

I've made a huge mistake.

I let the children sleep in the grown-up bed. Several nights in a row. All night.

My unusual soft-heartedness has stemmed from their constant irritability during the waking hours. Lucy and Jacko have been needing hands-on attention 24 hours a day, as well as extreme TLC in even the most benign of situations. Did a fly buzz twelve inches in front of your face? Be jittery for an hour. Are you already sitting on Mommy's lap, but you sense that your sibling might be lurking? Embed your nails into Mommy's neck for maximum grip. Make sure to cry-scream for 72 hours at the prospect of taking a nap.

Things have gotten so out of hand that Jacko even ignored babysitter Cari for the whole first hour of their time together last week—and Cari is like a magical pegasus in his eyes!

I have been bending over backwards in order to right their emotional path. Want to sleep on my pillows? Of course. Both sit on my lap, even though I need to pee? Come on over. Talk to me about how other children wouldn't let you shoot finger guns at them? Poor guy. Read 40 stories in a row with the TV still on and covered in melted chocolate chips? Let me put on my rain slicker first.

Their angst is visceral, but still quite opaque. I can't crack the code that will set them free from it.

I wish I knew how to help them. I pray every night and every morning that my daily parenting will do enough to tweak them back into place. And until I can fix it, I'll keep sleeping without my special sheets and my downy duvet. It's the least I can do.

But Why Pop Culture, Why Now, Why Me?

In the interest of time, I am going to fast forward and start my story in media res.

All this time, I had believed that my interests in pop culture had always been all-inclusive and had come from an inherent need to know about everything that exists. The fact that I can chat about Thelonious Monk and America's Next Top Model and 1960s politics at around the same high conversational level made me believe that I was an unchanging vacuum of knowledge. I never didn't want to know.

But intense self-reflection and hours of poring over journals and remembrances had just shown me the opposite.

My inhalation of movie quotes from films I'd never seen had been born of my first boyfriend; our dates were filled with him spouting lines of dialogue that left me wondering if he was going crazy. I never wanted to feel lost in conversations again, so I began to voraciously seek out lines and plots from popular movies. I can now have an intelligent conversation and drop in a reference to that one time at band camp, even though I have never seen an American Pie movie. What I thought was just a knack for memorization actually stemmed from my infatuation with a guy.

The eclectic taste I have in music was not inbred nor was it even wholly from my parents. If anything, it was from my best friend's parents. From a young age and still to this day, my constant stream of music came from her mix CDs that held a mystery compilation of fantastic songs; sometimes there would be a theme, such as "R&B Slow Jams," and other times I'd simply receive a CD entitled "Holly's 23rd Birthday Mix." My BFF's tastes came from her father's rock preferences and her mother's soundtrack love, plus a finely-tuned ear for music you can dance to. I may know which corners of the galaxy to peruse for the latest hits now, but I got the road map from her.

And my addiction to TV was something I thought I came by honestly enough. It's my entertainment of choice and the more the better. But, you know what I really love? Talking with other people about TV. I have discovered that I watch TV mainly so that I can converse about TV; the water cooler moments and the filler episodes are equally as fascinating to me, and my first instinct when the credits roll is to go to Television Without Pity or Facebook to see what my comrades were watching. My self-perceived devotion to the small screen was actually a lifeline for continual conversation with others; my deserted island would not include a TV, because who would debate season finales with me there?

So, although I spout more than the average bear about books and celebrities and general pop culture knowledge, what I am really doing is holding up a sign that says, "I am the product of the people around me."

And my mom has always said that I have great taste in friends.

Adult-Sized Threats

My father woke little-girl Me up during the middle of the night; I shared a room with my sister Shelley and was concerned that her sleep would be disturbed accidentally by my dad's angry voice. He was viscerally upset with me and began his late-night lecture.

He informed me that Shelley had already been awake for awhile—in fact, she'd never gone to sleep. Each time she would be close to sealing the sleeping deal, she would startle awake with the memory of something I had said to her earlier:

"Shelley, I'm so angry with you that I'm going to kill you in your sleep."

At most, I was seven years old and Shelley was six. I was too young to realize the heft of my words and Shelley was too young to understand the hyperbole. My dad had woken me up to explain the consequences of my unkind speech, then informed me that I would not be sleeping until Shelley was. After that, my memory blurs and I don't recall whether or not we ended up seeing the sunrise.

But the moral of the story remains. Shelley lost sleep because of what I'd said to her.

Lately, I myself have been losing sleep at an alarming rate. This is a new phenomenon in my life—I am the world's deepest sleeper and proud to take advantage of that. At my angriest, my weepiest, my worriedest, I have been able to seek restorative sleep. And I always felt better in the morning.

But this morning, I do not feel better. What I feel is my body moving through clear gelatin, almost unable to close my eyelids due to the wobbly pressure pushing against my retinas. My hours have been distilled into slow motion film. The only events that have cut through the fog were the several times Jacko threw up last night; motherly instincts don't lose their edge. But dealing with the children's emotional aftermath has been a series of cartoon stills with a piano hanging above my head on a fraying rope.

Jacko's told me that he hates me approximately fifteen times this morning; Lucy has followed suit in her own obstinate way. But I don't hold it against them. They aren't the only ones that hate me.

I can't sleep because I feel like parts of my life are saying to me:

"Holly, I'm so angry with you that I'm going to kill you in your sleep."

Who is going to lecture them on my behalf?

Another "Don't Do It" from the Holly Playbook—Love Poetry Edition

When I was fifteen, I was pursued by a boy for the first time ever.

After not too long, things ended the way they usually do when you are fifteen and in like.

He asked me to kiss him, and I said no; although, for years my mother thought I'd said yes.

I recall the brightly-lit desk in my English class where I happened upon what I thought was the most perfect poem for that time in his and my life. My textbook was filled with poems, but this was the one that I had wantonly opened to; at the time, I thought it was fate. And now I look back, and I am able to view it as a timely coincidence. Most of my teenagehood was both timely and coincidence.

The poem stood so boldly off the page that I almost ripped it out of the book. My mistaken visual memory of this page is essentially what an illuminated manuscript looks like behind a pane of glass—golden, shimmering, sacred. Instead of defacing school property, I chose to spend that class period copying it with pencil on college-ruled paper. I accompanied the poem with a small note for that boy which read something like, "I thought this might be useful to you since we aren't together any longer."

I'm sure I worded it much more soothingly, but the essential message was, "WE BROKE UP. I BET YOU ARE SAD." This note got to him somehow, probably through me brazenly handing it to him with nary a smile. I can't remember his reaction to it. I bet he does, however.

I look back on this time as a teaching moment for my kids when they begin to have romantic feelings for someone or try to end a relationship. Assumptions about the other person's feelings are so dangerous and tenuous that you might end up looking foolish trying to grasp at them. And trying to assuage someone's feelings of anger or hurt that you caused them can feel like a dismissive pat on the head. The things going through other people's heads are none of your business—don't White Knight something that might not be there.

The poem, by recently-exhumed poet Pablo Neruda, is still quite beautiful, though.

I Can Write

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.

Write, for instance: "The night is full of stars,
and the stars, blue, shiver in the distance."

The night wind whirls in the sky and sings.

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.

On nights like this, I held her in my arms.
I kissed her so many times under the infinite sky.

She loved me, sometimes I loved her.
How could I not have loved her large, still eyes?

I can write the saddest poem of all tonight.
To think I don't have her. To feel that I've lost her.

To hear the immense night, more immense without her.
And the poem falls to the soul as dew to grass.

What does it matter that my love couldn't keep her.
The night is full of stars and she is not with me.

That's all. Far away, someone sings. Far away.
My soul is lost without her.

As if to bring her near, my eyes search for her.
My heart searches for her and she is not with me.

The same night that whitens the same trees.
We, we who were, we are the same no longer.

I no longer love her, true, but how much I loved her.
My voice searched the wind to touch her ear.

Someone else's. She will be someone else's. As she once
belonged to my kisses.
Her voice, her light body. Her infinite eyes.

I no longer love her, true, but perhaps I love her.
Love is so short and forgetting so long.

Because on nights like this I held her in my arms,
my soul is lost without her.

Although this may be the last pain she causes me,
and this may be the last poem I write for her.

Our Beautiful Twisted Fantasy Week

Though it may sound silly on the glorious day known as Friday, I am kind of wishing that I could have an extra Monday this week. The Flanagan family has had a week full of adventures, and only today am I feeling like I will have time to do responsible things like laundry and child-rearing.

But despite the lack of grown-up activities, we have all had an enormous amount of fun these last few days. Here are some snapshots of our whirlwind life.

On Monday, we escaped the insane heat of our home (no cooling system means yucky interiors) by going to our local thrift store (check out that mail holder!), eating our meals at restaurants, and wandering around Target. Our whole day was spent in preparation for the next day—Caleb's 29th birthday!

Monday night, it was so warm in our townhome (86 degrees at 2 am!) that we all relocated to our basement; makeshift beds and floor fans made sleeping possible, as well as creating our first family sleepover. After a call to the manager confirming that our air conditioning would be installed on Wednesday, we booked a hotel room for Tuesday night.

Caleb's birthday was a great excuse to have this unusual family excursion. I chose the Airport Inn Hotel because it is conveniently close to our home and off the beaten hotel chain path; the website promised comfy beds, made-to-order breakfasts, and a swimming pool. I packed up the necessities (including the birthday cake!) and the kids, and off we went.

When we arrived, I was exceptionally pleased; we had walked right into the most pristine 80s cheesiness that I had ever witnessed. Everything was dark wood and ivy, all squished together in economical architecture. As you can see in the picture above and the picture below, the pool was not only indoors, it was IN THE LOBBY. No walls separated the areas, though the short railings demarcated the lobby from the swimming pool. Any raucousness from a pool party would be heard and seen from the leather couches thirty feet away.

But also, there was only railing separating the pool from the restaurant. The chlorinated smell of the pool readily wafted into the restaurant, meaning that our breakfast eggs and toast felt like a pre-watersliding delight. I was pleased as punch at all of these happenings. The kids, not so much, because Caleb and I felt extremely uncomfortable taking us all swimming in these conditions. Jacko has yet to forgive us of this slight.

Our hotel adventure ended, and the kids and I were tasked with spending all Wednesday (and surprisingly, all Thursday) out of the house. We did not want to get in the repairman's way, so that he could get our air conditioning in as quickly as possible. Plus, Jacko has a tendency to be a vocal taskmaster to hired help.

We utilized our Kids Bowl Free coupons two days in a row, plus visited several playgrounds and fast food playlands; we even made a stop-off at Caleb's office, so that I could drop the kids off and get a new permanent crown in the dental office in the building. Wednesday and Thursday all blended together into a Go-Go-Go chaos machine.

But most shockingly of all, Jacko and Caleb went to get a haircut this week. Jacko had been growing his hair out to "wear a ponytail," but the summer heat doesn't go well with his thick hair. Since he has gotten this clean-cut look, I feel like I am dealing with a much more adult version of Jacko than before. I'll admit, I miss the devil-may-care look. But as you can see, I still have one child who is still into that kind of image (see: Lucy Goosey.)

Let Us Oft Speak Kind Words to Each Other

My therapist was surprised when I told her I wouldn't change one thing about my childhood.

She said it doesn't happen too often.

The evidence supports my claim, however, because my parents and my sisters and I form the closest-knit family I have ever known. We are in constant contact, we support each other in every endeavor and trial, and we are incredibly open about what is going on in our lives. I purport that our relationship wouldn't be as healthy if my childhood and that of my sisters was not idyllic.

In trying to create this kinship in my own little family, I examined the actions of my parents and tried to mimic them. Jacko was a tiny baby when I had an "Aha" moment that I have since followed:

My childhood home was filled with kind and loving speech.

The list of no-no words was long, including "suck" and "stupid," and there was more than one occurrence of an impassioned "BE QUIET!" since "shut up" was also verboten. But the house rules weren't solely keeping the negative words out; my sisters and I were encouraged, both directly and by my parents' example, to say positive things about each other and our surroundings. That kind of talk let us learn to express our feelings and be proud of who we are.

If I wanted those things for my children, I knew I had to work hard to instill kind and loving speech in our home. My first decision was to say "yes" to my children instead of "yeah"; the latter could be construed as sarcastic or dismissive, and I wanted to let my kids know that they were being heard and respected. When Jacko became mobile, I decided to tell him "no, thank you" instead of simply "no" (though "NO!" would often come in times of danger). From there, my personal positive-speech practice has grown into hundreds of rules—kindly explaining my reasoning when making decisions, saying "I love you" enough to smother them, vocally admiring the beauty of the earth, pointing out their generous and unprompted service. My whole day is filled with split-second decisions to keep a happy tone of voice and to engage my children in intellectual, positive conversation.

It can be exhausting.

But it's worth it.

Yesterday, at Target, I asked Jacko if he would like to get an Amazing Hulk t-shirt. He responded, "No, I'd prefer something more stylish." A lady in her fifties was on the other side of the rack; she tittered and we exchanged that knowing, adult glance of Aren't Kids Funny. I put the Hulk shirt back and searched for another option. The woman lingered. She looked again at me, caught my eye, and said, "I have been listening to you. It has been refreshing to hear you speak so nicely to your children; I don't often hear that when I am shopping. Many parents are so mean and rude to their kids. You're not. You have restored some of my faith in today's parents."

Between her statements, I was inserting platitudes like, "Look at these kids, how could I not be nice?" and "They're smart kids, so it's fun to talk with them"; however, she chugged along, trying to let me see how appreciative she was. I finally thanked her and asked the kids to wish her a happy day. My mind turned over what she had said, searching for an appropriate feeling to affix to it all.

I decided to be proud.