Purging is good for the Soul?

I believe I have quoted from the Jane Austen Book Club on this blog once before and even used this specific quote... "high school is never over". It's true. Whether you were the popular kids, the losers or somewhere in between there is, more than likely, at least one memory lurking in your mind that can still make you cringe.

I was in the inbetween crowd and I was okay with that. However, during my Grade 11 year, I decided to do a year long exchange to Europe, Holland, specifically, and when I came back to Grade 12, I found that I had changed so much I didn't really feel like I fit in anywhere. Suddenly my close friends were no longer the understanding or fun loving people that I remembered. Did they change or was it me? That year in Europe probably did change me. Who can go away from their families for an entire year and not mature a little? So while I enjoyed graduating etc... I did not really connect with all that many people any more.

You think that you're done when you get that diploma and walk off that stage but it's really far from over. If you don't move away, you will continually run into "friends" from school. These will quicly categorize themselves into two groups... those that grew up and did something with their lives and those that didn't grow up and can still be seen at the local pub getting pissed every night.

Then, of course, there are the reunions. I went to my 10th and it basically was a drag. I had just gotten married, one of my closest friends' husband worked with mine for a time and they were still ticked with him over some issue so she wouldn't talk to me, which meant the other girls I was close to either hung with her or me and it was her because I had moved away for a while and lost contact with everybody. So it was awkward.

Then there is the ex-boyfriend. For purposes of anonymity, we will call this person Steve. He was shall we say my "first" both in you know what and what you would call a serious relationship. We ended up breaking up because I had moved 2 hours away for work and he didn't like being left in the home town alone even though he planned to move to the same place in 6 months or so. He ended up dating a sister of a school friend of ours and, of course, I eventually found out and that was it.

I spent the next couple of years trying to get over him. I would actually be fine then suddenly I'd have this intense dream about him and I'd just have to call. Usually I'd get his mother and that was enough to make the dreams go away for a time. I even lived with another guy in the meantime.. talk about rebound. Then I just had to call him again, this is like 2 years later, and he was really glad to hear from me. Turns out he was still seeing the same girl he cheated on me with, although they were on the verge of breaking up and did break up shortly after I called. Thus started a weird sort of friendship between us. I was still attracted to him but whatever it was for him for me... just wasn't there anymore.

I knew when to give up and move on. I couldn't be around him, there was just some weird kind of charm he had for me. So I moved back home and eventually lost touch with him. The last I'd heard from him was when he called up to see if I wanted to rent a place with him and another friend. Turned out the other person was "the girl" and they were getting back together again. He couldn't see how bizarre and awkward that would have been for me. He thought we'd all be mature enough to get around it. I can tell you right now that she would not have been keen on having me around AT ALL.

Then I met my future Mr. Right and basically moved on. I hadn't talked to Steve since that last phone call approximately 4 years from the 10th High School Reunion.

Am I a little weird when I say that I still have this weird strange attraction to him? Don't get me wrong. I love my husband and know he's the one for me. Steve and I had different values, as evidenced by the fact that he didn't think it was wrong to cheat if we weren't in the same town etc and not officially engaged or married and he smoked pot, which I never did etc.

So I know that if I had gone down a different road in life that I would have ended up making compromises where I shouldn't. Every single "different" thing about me.. was because of him. He exposed me to music that I would never have ever listened to before. Even though I am not a fan of punk he got me to listen to it and understand it in a different sort of way. In the end, I just don't think I was rebel enough for him.

Let me just state that I don't regret my life now at all. I am 100% positive about this. It's just that I still have this weird soft spot for him and it bothers me. Cause I don't think I should. I should be able to face him completely nonchantly and not even think or remember how we used to go together. Instead, I avoid him at all costs and barely looked or said two words to him during the whole reunion. Is that messed up and immature or what? I have been wanting to talk to someone about this for some time now but I don't think even my mother would understand what I'm saying. Cause I'm not saying I'm still in love with Steve.. I just seem to still think about him now and then.

Now it's my 20th reunion and I didn't go this time. Not because I didn't want to run into Steve but because I am embarrassed. You see I have gained a lot of weight since high school and although I was heavy at the 10th... I'm even heavier now after having had the three kids.

Stupid thing is that I lost my baby weight literally in a week but after that I started to gain weight slowly but surely keeping an extra ten pounds on between each babies and with O and the high blood pressure, I'm the heaviest I have ever been. I am embarrassed to go to my 20th Reunion and show them how fat I have become.

And that makes me sad. Why am I telling all this? I don't know except that I haven't told anyone else here about it. It's funny, my husband is supposed to be sensitive but when I told him about the reunion in passing he never once asked me if I wanted to go or why I wasn't going. There was even on old acquaintance on facebook who asked me if I was working that night because maybe she'd pop in and see me. I never answered her. She never came.

The 20th reunion was this past weekend and it's too late to change my mind but I know I wouldn't have enjoyed myself. I barely enjoyed myself at my brother's pig roast in June because most of the guests were friends of theirs that we barely knew. Somehow I have lost that ability to just go up to strangers and make conversation.

Even though you should be happy with the way you are... sometimes it just beats you down and it's really hard to get back up again.

That's it. I don't have any pithy commentary with which to end all this. Perhaps it was just a little purging of my soul and I shall feel a little lighter after this because when you speak something out loud it loses it's power.