I need a hug

I wish I could lie and say I was popular in grammar school. The truth of the matter is I wasn't. Not by a long shot. I was the chubby dishwater blonde girl with the pimples and the bad perms. I wasn't Irish enough. We didn't live in the right neighborhood. I coached basketball instead of played it. I got good grades, and stopped trying to impress the popular crowd by mid-7th grade. Could it be all of these reasons that I didn't get invited to my 20th reunion party? No, oh no dear readers. I'm not kidding. I wasn't invited. After I left the evils of QAS behind in the fall of 1988, I knew that I was destined for better and cooler things. I threw myself into activities. I lost a little weight. I discovered Medusa's. I also discovered that it's much more awesome to just be myself, than try to fit in. Strangely, when I did my own thing I made friends. Lots of them. All different types and shapes and sizes. My high school years were fantastic. My couple of college years were awesome too. Every year after that (and there have been a few) has been better and better. For the most part, I really like myself. I love that I do a lot of different things, and that I know a ton of people. VonMom likes to say that I am like my dad in that no matter where I go, I always run into someone I know. This is true. I know a lot of people. Friends, acquaintances, people I have volunteered with/gotten drunk with/made music with/learned with/lost with....these people are everywhere. I love people. - Ok. I really do. As long as they aren't lame annoying people. All of this is a direct result of who I was, the person I was beaten down to, when I left eighth grade. I left those people and they way they behaved way way behind me. True story: While at a party my freshman year at NEIU, I ran into one of the guys that tormented me the most in grammar school. I wasn't exactly sober. G looked at me, I gave him the finger. Drunk as I was, I knew exactly who he was. He finally figured out who I was. I ignored him as best I could, but the party wasn't that big. He kept being around. I was my usual self, trying to make people laugh, having a good time. A few days after the party I ran into G at school. He stopped me and said "I wanted to apologize to you." I stood there, waiting for some asshole comment or other. Then he said "I'm sorry I was such a jerk to you in school. You're pretty cool, and I'm sorry I didn't see that before." I saw him a few times after that (he was friends with my to-this-day very good friend John) and I hated him a little less. Still, what he said made me glow a little. The reason I am writing this blog is that I'm pissed. Frustrated, mostly, with myself that those people that I went to grammar school still affect me so much. I found out about the reunion party when I talked to JL, the one person I reconnected with from QAS. JL is good people. I found him on myspace early in 2007. We got together had some beers and we made each other laugh. I think we are friends again, which is great. Anyway, we were talking on the phone, and he mentioned that he had run into another one of the QAS people somewhere, B. B told JL about the party. JL hadn't gotten actually invited either. JL told me. He asked if I wanted to go. That ended up being the weekend that I went to Boston, so I had an easy out. I don't think I would have gone anyway. JL went. I haven't had the chance to hear how it was, I'll need to call him to find out. A thought: Really? Did they even try to locate everyone? I mean, my parents live in the same house we lived in when I went to school there, so it's not like they couldn't find a mailing address. Assholes. I really feel that they invited the same people that they hung out with 20 years ago. I'm assuming that reflects on how little they have changed or matured as people. I looked at some of their facebook pages, and I found a couple of pictures of myself on their pages. Do they look at these pictures and not even realize that there are other people in those pictures beside them and their friends? Why am I even in those pictures? I have no memory of this. I am really mad at myself for being so affected. Fact: I would not have gone had I been in town. Fact: I don't really want to ever see those people again. These truths being said, I don't know why I am so upset about this whole thing. Maybe I wish it had been my option to not go. For all of the strides I've made, I feel like this whole situation has knocked me for a loop. I know that I do make fun of myself quite a bit, and it is because I do it before someone else can - this is one piece of baggage I carry from grammar school. I just need to remind myself that all the good that I am, all the fun, and the cool, are also a result of them. I worked really hard to never be that girl again. I do still like myself a lot. This is a speed bump, a minor set back. I haven't thought about them in years, and I want to get back to that, I don't want to be thinking of them now. I just needed to get that off my chest. QAS people suck.