Remember in high school this conversation, usually in the girls’ bathroom:

“Oh my God, he’s so cute. I hope he asks  me out!”

“Oh my god he IS SO CUTE!,” replied your girlfriend in the next stall.

Of course this was before you could text between stalls.

My friend Lisa, is going to her high school reunion for the first time. It’s her 45th reunion. Add 18 to that and you have deciphered the age of most of the participants with a certain very tiny margin of error of no more than a year, unless they had an unusually high percentage of child geniuses in her small upstate New York town. I feel quite certain this was one of their former conversations four decades ago.

Oddly, Lisa attended a singing event in that same small upstate New York town several months ago. She made a special effort to contact some old high school friends and voila! She was convinced by these dear, kind friends from the past to make a special effort to get to that reunion.

Since her traumatic brain injury, Lisa does not drive and no one from her high school lives anywhere near her. But these old pals from the past, whom she hasn’t seen in a very long time, have agreed to drive many hours to come pick her up and the same many hours to return her safe and sound to her home.

This has restored my faith in humanity.

Lisa hasn’t seen these people from high school in many years. She hasn’t spoken to several of them at all since high school ended. And yet, these girls (yes, I’m going to call them that) are willing to make big sacrifices to get her transported, housed and taken care of so that they can all reminisce about their teenage lives.

I have been know to comment that “high school never ends”, and not in a good way. I have seen cattiness, jealousy and spitefulness continue among high school compatriots all around me. And, of course, we see it as a staple in reality TV like “Real Housewives” of anywhere, “The Bachelor(ette)”and any “reality” show requiring contestants to compete for attention, living space, food, or screen time so they can be famous. This is high school behavior at its finest. Small-minded, petty, self-serving behavior. It might be fun to watch, but it’s really not fun to be in the midst of it.

Life has continued to become a popularity contest, and not in a good way. What else would you call a host of mudslinging, bully tactics designed to make your opponent look bad in the eyes of the student body…oh a political campaign, that’s right.

I am one of those few lucky girls who even after 40 years of  high school,  still regularly sees my high school girlfriends who are a rock solid foundation of support, fun, and constant joy in  my life.

That my friend, Lisa, has rediscovered the possibility that old friends could be ‘gold’ does my heart good.

This, of course, did not exempt any of these 60-something women from having a big internet powwow in the last few days about whose old boyfriend will be showing up and which of those might be single and a possible “love connection.”

I imagine those ladies in the girls’ bathroom this weekend when they see their former flames saying:

“Oh my God, he’s still so cute, I wonder if he’s single?”

“Oh my God, he is cute, and he has his own teeth AND HIS OWN HAIR?!?!?”

See, high school never ends…….no, really, it’s true. If only you knew that when you were in high school.

“You Just have to Laugh………..”

©2015 Cathy Sikorski