My phone beeps, telling me I have a message in my in-box. As I eat my breakfast, I open it and see it's a file for the details of my thirty year high school reunion. Suddenly the eggs feel like concrete block and I push the half-eaten meal aside. I've been watching the posts from the Mt. Tabor 1987 Reunion page on Facebook and thinking, "Do I really want to go? Will I regret it if I don't?" Honestly, that was such an awkward, scary time in my life and apart from my Freshman year, which felt like a magical fairytale, the rest of my days as a high school student mostly sucked. Of all my time in K-12 schools, the only year that I really felt as if I belonged to something special was my Freshman year. I made some lovely friends (most of whom moved to a different school the next year per North Carolina's constant redistricting). I was on the cheer-leading squad, which was a blast (especially since my mother had also been a Mount Tabor Spartan cheerleader many years before). And I made a connection or two that has stayed with me well into my adult life, connections that don't make me sad. Once most of those friends changed schools, the dynamics went right back to a scene I knew I didn't have the energy or desire to be a part of, so I spent a lot of time trying to be as invisible as possible, and survive. What was happening in my life outside of those academic walls was far more menacing and challenging than any teenage milieu.

Being a teacher, I am privy to plenty of middle school drama and I frequently tell my students that there are far more important things in life to be concerned about than whatever it is that's gotten them spun up in the first place. But as I opened up my old senior yearbook, a flood of emotions from that other dimension, that life I was caught up in during that time came pouring back. My chest constricted. A ball of angst and regret formed in my belly. And my hands shook, as I looked for those from my class who are now deceased. There somewhere inside is a part of me who is in awe of the fact that I've lived this long, made it this far. The girl staring back at me from my senior photo (one of the worst pictures ever taken of me), her life from then until now is a miracle. And yet...

I remember sitting at a dining hall table with a group of pilot's wives at an Air Force event not too terribly long ago. We were discussing our school days...the bullies, the boys who broke our hearts, and the general feeling of just not fitting in at all. One of the wives laughingly told me, "We went to just one of my reunions and it was full of people who had been mean to me for quite awhile when I was in school. I took great pleasure in finding a break in their bragging conversations to interject that I'd finished my degree, became an analyst and oh, by the way, married a man who flies fighter jets for a living!" She added that while she should, perhaps, be a little ashamed at indulging her petty side, she didn't because it felt good to give back a tiny taste to those who had once callously harmed her. We all agreed. Working hard to make something of yourself is its own reward, especially in spite of all the challenges that life, and other not-so-nice humans put in our paths. But delivering a tiny "screw you" in the face of those who would do us harm feels good. Is that wrong?

Becoming the woman I am today has been a crazy difficult battle, and not just from foes or obstacles on the outside, but also from an inner war with myself that has been raging, off and on, since childhood. And even though I'm delighted with the path I'm currently on, there is still a part of me that resents those who've been a stumbling block on my journey. That's actually a good thing, as it has  kept me mindful of my words and actions in an attempt to never be a hindrance for someone else. The bullies of my childhood? They taught me to find beauty from within (hence the message tattooed to my arm, that I rub frequently throughout the day for strength and focus). The exclusion from my high school cliquey crowd? They taught me that my own worth should not be valued merely because of the group to which I belonged, by the merits of my being and what positive energy I could add to the world. As for the boys who used me, or hurt me, or both...they taught me to expand and refine my definition of love. They also taught me how to see my own value, my own sense of what I bring to the table, and how to never compromise that for something "temporary"  just because it might be "immediately fun". That rewarding brevity should only be used when it comes to things like cake. In matters of the heart, I'm in it for the longevity and sustainability. So to those in which this message applies, I offer a heartfelt "thanks". Those are lessons I never could have learned from a textbook. I reckon my badass grown self will go to that thirty year shindig, have a drink, and celebrate a long but successful road into THIS dimension!

"Some days the memories still knock the wind out of me..." --the Mad Hatter's Tea Party

The sky is grey, a fine mist falling in the soft, sleepy morning and making the start of my Saturday a watercolor wash of dripping color. As I pull myself together to face the day, the artist in me reaches for my mother, who was far more talented than I could ever hope to be, although I continue the endeavor of honing those artistic skills she slipped into my DNA. The bright light from my make-up mirror reveals a face so similar to hers, and yet there are lines there (well hello there crows feet, you bastards)...from age and laughter and sorrow, lines she never got to experience. She would have hated growing old, hated it with a passion. And even though she'd have hated it, I really needed her to do it anyway. I have things to tell her, things I discuss with her that remain merely a frustrating, one-sided conversation inside my head.

It's odd, the times she appears so strongly in my thoughts (like this morning), speaking to me in my mind as if she's always there, some lovely whispering moment away on the other side of time. Sometimes thoughts of her hit me like a Ninja kick to the solar plexus, whole other times she pops in from some random point in an ordinary day. For example, my daughters recently took a trip to NYC to celebrate the birthday of my oldest, and my little one sent me a picture of herself all dressed up and out on the town. What she didn't know, what I didn't say is that seeing her there was like some beautiful punch in the gut, seeing her beautiful happy face and sense of style so similar to my mother's it took my breath away and made me ache for the woman who gave me life. I feared if I told her that, it would put a dark cloud over her joyous time with her sister, and I didn't want to be the one to take that exquisite smile off her face.

I am struck by the ways in which other people's lights shape my life on so many levels. And while my mother's is at the forefront today, those thoughts give way to others who have done the same, come and gone leaving their fingerprints on who I am. Some of those encounters invariably invoke these unexpected aches, often aches I don't even know how to identify, much less verbalize. It feels as if I carry the ghosts of countless people who've stirred to life powerful emotions from the murky depths of that place often referred to as ones' "soul". When I think of these people, I mentally divide them into categories...those who see a beautiful flower and pick it, those who crush the flower in their hand or beneath their feet, and those who cultivate and appreciate it in all its splendor. Somewhere in my mind I hear my mother say, "How could you ever think you were ugly? You are the daughter of a beauty queen. Literally." And I want to explain to her that even a lovely exterior can hide a core full of vile and rot, but I know that conversation would be a fruitless endeavor, because like my Aunt Mattie, she was one of the few people I know who could find beauty even in the ugly, damaged spaces. It is a skill set I am working to master without being shattered in the process.

Sometimes the Universe sends you a song that exactly describes how you're feeling inside (I love it when this happens, even if it hurts like hell). The words, the melody hit the precise "YOU" note that resonates in your bones, in your cells, down deep below even that molecular construct. The song below, that is the most recent gift to me from the Universe and God does it sum up what my clumsy words have tried to convey.