The Big 1-0

It's officially here. No matter how I tried to pretend/ignore/avoid it, it came!! My ten year high school reunion was last night. Truth be told, I'd been waffling between going and not. For the most part, I keep in touch with those I really want to and through the wonders of facebook and the grapevine, I hear about most of the others. Umm, that sounds way snobbier than I anticipated! Really, I'm not a snob! To be 100% honest, the biggest reason I didn't want to go wasn't because of anyone else. It was because of me. Let me explain.

I was not exactly the popular kid in high school. I was not even remotely gifted in sports, the school choir was kind of a joke (although it was fun!), there was no drama program, and,while I was smart, most of my friends were smarter than I was. Add to that that I was one of the biggest girls in school and my friends were all beautiful, well, lets just say I spent many dances watching them get asked to dance.

For a while after high school, I was bitter. I blamed it on the school and the small town I came from. While I was at BYU, I really found myself. I had ample opportunity to do the things I loved and had some really great success at it. Then circumstances changed and I had to come home really suddenly. Since then, I've done virtually nothing with theater at all.

When I left high school, I had the desire to "prove myself" and had all these huge plans for my 1o year reunion. As I grew up, my desire wasn't as vindictive. I heard and saw all of these great things my class mates had accomplished and I felt like I was falling short. I've accomplished so little!

Over the last few months, as reality set in, so did a huge sense of failure. I left BYU with a year left to get my degree, with the exception of when I was at university, my job history has not been illustrious or exciting, I don't own a house, my financial situation is far less than impressive, I haven't lost all the weight I want to, my business is growing way too slowly... well, you get the idea. With the exception of TJ and James, I felt like I had very little in the way of accomplishments!

As the weeks passed, I started to realize that, even though I haven't accomplished 1/10 of what I wanted to by now, I'm not a failure at all! Life has thrown me some pretty big curve balls over the past 10 years and I've dealt with them and grown from them. I'm still working towards my goals and I haven't given up. That, in and of itself is enough to make me not a failure.

I still didn't go last night, but mostly it was because I was feeling really sick.