20 Year Reunion

It is mine and Jared's 20 year high school reunion this weekend and we are not attending the events.  It is Jared's work weekend anyway, but that isn't the real reason we aren't going.  It feels so trivial to write the reason why, but I want to anyway.  We attended our 10 year reunion and it was a pretty miserable experience for me.  I realized how many people I didn't know from our graduating class and they didn't know me either.  The event we attended was a family event at Sugarhouse Park in Salt Lake City.  At the time we had 3 kids under the age of 4, Vanessa was 4, Eric was 3 and Joseph was 1.  It was awful trying to chase them while reuniting with old friends.  Well, in my case I mostly just stood around while Jared tried to reunite with old friends.  I felt so stupid and so lonely.  There were even people there that knew me from high school but they acted like they didn't know me.  How rude!  I guess they didn't have anything to say to me and I decided I didn't have anything to say to them either.  I remember it was hard for me to even talk to people.  But the hardest part for me is how hard it was for me to smile.  And if you know me at all, that is saying something.  Smiling has always been something that has come easy for me.  So, I decided I wasn't going to go through anything like that again, ever.  And I have kept to my promise. 

I wonder if it would be different now that 20 years have passed.  I wonder if the people in my graduating class have gone through enough of life's battles that it has softened them a bit.  I feel sure that that is the reason why I do not want to attend this weekend.  I just couldn't bare the thought of standing around all alone trying pretend like I was having fun. 

I asked Jared if he wanted to go.  He knows my feelings and said he didn't want to go knowing how I felt.  It was sweet of him and I was glad he didn't put any pressure on me.

Here's to our 20 year graduation from Highland High School!!!

In other news, Jared's parents, Grandma Harris (92 years old,) his sister Marianne, his brother Grayson's wife Allysa, and his brother Jonathan and his family were all here for Jared's birthday party yesterday.  We had a lovely time and the kids loved seeing their cousins.  I was so happy that Jared got to spend his birthday with the people he loves the most.  Our relationship with Jared's parents is still strained and we have our disagreements, but we don't focus on them.  Now that Jared is completely away from working for his father, our relationship can move forward normally.  We feel blessed.