A Graduation Party and a High School Reunion

Saturday was pretty hectic. My sister held her graduation party on the same day as my high school reunion was being held. So I will break this post up into the two areas. --Okay, you’re just going to have to ignore my previous post. I don’t have many pictures of any substance. But, I guess I’ll throw out the ones that were taken.

Kristel’s Graduation Party

Preparation for my sister’s party actually started a couple weeks before it was held. Here you can see my mom cleaning and rearranging the living room. In the picture is also the new couch and curtains that she bought. I swear, I should have bought her a horse whip. She made me do quite a bit of chores to get this thing done. I don’t know why she made such a big fuss about having the house spotless. The plan was to have this party outside. Well the weather got to be pretty bad for the day. It was in the mid 90’s with high humidity and no breeze. It was actually worse than Philippine weather. So I suppose that making the house clean was a good idea after all. I knew that everyone was going to stay in the house as much as they could. Hell, I would!

When I got up for the day, I still had to clean my room and do my laundry. In between doing that, I helped my dad put up some of the equipment outside as well as helped prepare some of the food. About two hours before the party would start, I became the full time fry cook and tended to the lumpia—a very dangerous thing for my mother to do… leaving her son with tons of his favorite food.

Although I wasn’t really looking forward to seeing her friends, I was excited that my extended family was showing up. I just hoped that they got here early enough so that I could talk to them before I left for my reunion. It turned out that I wouldn’t have enough time with them as I would have hoped, but it was good to see them for as much as I did.

First off, there were the Coombs. They are from my mother’s side of the family. Aunt Connie was my mother’s sister who married my Uncle Marc and had my two cousins, Jessica and Eric C. Usually it was us who went over to Illinois to see them. It has definitely been a couple years since I’ve last seen them. Eric has gotten big… like football player big. He probably could kick the crap out of me. The Coombs are pretty much the only members of my mother’s side that I really consider family other than my grandmother and a few others. The rest, I really don’t know about.

On my paternal side, almost everyone was there. My cousins Jason and Eric B. stopped by. When they came in the house, I didn’t recognize them at least not until I saw Eric and realized that Jason was standing there next to him. My paternal grandma has seven grandkids (or 9 if you count non-biologicals). Jason, Eric, my sister and I represent the first wave. The last three were only born a couple of years ago. We used to be pretty tight but we’ve pretty much drifted apart. I still think to that last good summer when we spent time at the farm. It was so much fun. Now, we barely see each other, much less doing anything. That’s too bad.

The party seemed to be pretty stiff as most people splintered into groups. It felt awkward sometimes because it seemed as if some people were left hanging in the breeze with no attention from my sister. There was her high school buddies, my paternal side family, and the Coombs—all left to fend for themselves.

After two hours, I had to leave for my reunion which was being held at the American Legion Park in town. When I drove by, there was no one there. I wasn’t all that late and I knew that there had to be at least some people who wanted to go. I figured that they moved it to someplace else and no one had told me. So I went back to the house where I called Season. She didn’t respond so I called Chris. He told me that it had been moved and was now at Jessica’s house. Lot of good that did me, I didn’t know where Jessica lived! So I had him come and pick me up while I hung out a little while longer with my relatives.

The High School Reunion

I had felt both excitement and dread as I waited to go to this reunion. Even after I sent in my RSVP, I had considered just skipping out on it because I wasn’t sure if I wanted to face the people who I expected to be there. Our class was small; there were twenty of us. Out of all of them since graduation, I’ve only kept in real contact with two of them—Season and Sara. When I came home, I would also hang out with Adam. People like Chris, I rarely talked to ever again and I feel terrible about it. Now, I was unsure where I stood with all of them socially and even economically. I was afraid to know, actually. It was practically a miracle that a reunion was actually taking place and who knows if there will be one for 2010. So this might be my only opportunity and I had to take it. I had to go.

Chris came by and picked me up. I felt a twinge of guilt since I have not hung out with him since graduation and had only recently started to talk to him. It would be great if we could hang out but we are still running in different circles. We got to Jessica’s house to find her, Mandie, Sara, and Season. As time went on, more and more people came in.

Most of us looked pretty much the same as we did in high school. Jimmy sarcastically said to me, “Wow, [I] didn’t recognize you from your hair.” Yeah, I guess I my hair style has never been changed. Of all of them, Nathan seemed to have changed the most—at least to me. He looked a lot older than the last time I remembered. He used to be a scrawny but now he has filled out.

I had expected to be there for maybe a half hour, but I was there for five… listening to everyone trade stories after quite a bit of liquor lubrication. It was nice to hear some of it. Kind of disappointed that I wasn’t apart of most of it, though. As I looked at the crowd around me, I thought quite a bit of how time as affected us. It also brought out some things that I really didn’t want to face about myself mainly that I am constantly in worry that I will end up a failure. In each and every one of my classmates, I found something that I wish I had. Steve is married. Amanda has a baby. Nathan wants for nothing. Chris is completely independent. Dusty is on his way up the ladder of success and Brandon travels.

My kick in the ass came with people finding out that I worked at Wal-mart a high school job in most people’s minds. Yet, I received only glancing flak, most of which I initiated. What I got out of it, was that it’s a job and at least I’m doing something. Season calls it “transition.” I hope to God that she’s right. Basically, I should stop being the whiny bitch that I am and suck it up.

People like Brandon and Steve, who I had been intimidated by in school were actually friendly. If you told me in 2000 that I would one day feel comfortable enough to sit with these guys—much less shake their hands, I would have laughed in your face. It feels good to be wrong.

I still don’t know what the future holds for 2010. I don’t know if we will get together again. I hope so. Thanks and kudos to Jessica for pulling this thing off even though she never had to. She stepped up to the plate and it was really impressive. It was better than I had hoped. All I know is that when I next see them… I hope that I’ve got a job and I’m not single… and maybe I was a little thinner… and…