The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

I have an invitation to my 10 year (!) high school reunion, and I suppose I am going to go for some reason or another. It’s… weird. I feel like I should go, almost have to, but in some ways I don’t know why.

Let’s face it, this reunion is going to be pretty well boring and awkward all around. The vast majority of attendees don’t know I’ve transitioned, so that’s going to result in either everyone completely ignoring me and staying far away from the freak, or having to answer a barrage of the same questions over and over again. I’m not sure which one would be worse, to be honest. On top of that, the reunion involves a mass, something I haven’t been to since, I dunno, Layne got married? (Well, I was at Jonathan and Shauna’s wedding, clearly, but that was Baptist, so it kind of doesn’t count?) That’ll be weird, certainly. Then we’re going to a winery which means drinking which is not really my bag in any way. Then I dunno what happens after that. Probably more drinking? That’s what people do, right? Finally, I don’t really have all that many friends from high school to meet and spend time with who I don’t already see on a regular basis. Most of my friends stuck around here, and we’re still friends, you know?

At the same time, I just feel like it would be stupid not to go. I mean, I live here. It’s like no trouble at all to go. What’s more, the last thing I want is people asking about me to those who know about my situation and they, inadvertently I’m sure, explaining my new life in a way I don’t agree with or, worse, ignoring it entirely. That idea bothers me. Not so much that they’re talking behind my back, people do that, but that they’d basically have no chance to find out what’s really going on even if they wanted to. They’ll be gone, and I almost certainly won’t even have a vague chance of seeing them again until five years from now or whatever. People liked me, even if I wasn’t super-close with them, you know? I don’t want to awkward things up in a way I can’t help with. Sure, me being there may awkward things up a bit too, but that’s different. I can explain myself, and what’s more, it’ll be really fucking clear that I am really fucking happy. I’ll have a boyfriend at my side, I’ll be looking good, and I’ll be happy, and that will come across. Maybe they’ll get it. (Plus, I think CJ would like to do something like go to a winery, which makes little sense for me to do, so maybe this is a nice way to do that for reasons I don’t feel like I can veto.)

There was a time I wanted to run away from my old life and disappear, you know? I thought it would be easier. But as I get older, and as I finally got around to transitioning, I realized that would be basically the worst idea. I love my family, I love my friends, I love this city, and I loved my life. Sure, I had one big, glaring problem with it, brain problems, but the life itself was FANTASTIC. I don’t want to forget it all happened, and hide from it. It made me who I am, and I’m so lucky to have been involved with awesome people and had such a good time of it, even while I was dealing with my issues.

So I guess I want to make sure I’m not hiding from that past just because it’s easier. I want to say to myself that there’s no problems here, because there aren’t. I want to step into that and show them I am successful, and awesome, just like them. I’m just a lady now, as I always was inside. Fuck, several of them knew about it back then.

I’m going. If it’s a disaster, it’s a disaster, but I feel like I have to do this. Worst case, CJ and I will run far away and go eat a snowcone and laugh about how stupid this idea to go to my reunion was. But at least I’ll know I didn’t run away from it, you know?