Birthday Weekend

This weekend was my birthday.  Sunday--10-10-10.  In a move taught to me from my late husband Tim whose birthday was never just one day, I wanted to declare the whole weekend my birthday weekend.  After all it was special because it was 10-10-10, right? 

Luckily there were events happening that I knew were going to be fun to go to.  These events and the people who attended them were from my high school.  The class before me was having their 30-year reunion.  A get together was brewing in the old neighborhood, south Minneapolis.  It was fun just being back there . . . my old stomping grounds.  I get the feeling I'm transporting myself in a time warp.  Going back in time to when I was in high school at 17.  My girlfriends that are with me are the same ones as in high school.  We're walking up in the uncharacteristic warm weather for October in Minneapolis.  It's easy to forget what age we are.  There is quite a crowd of people there, we look for familiar faces.  One here, one there, some look like someone we used to know, we're searching for that yearbook picture to appear in our head.

We start talking to people, some we know from other Washburn get-togethers, but others we must have walked by in high school, but never spoke to.  Of course, most of the people here were a year ahead and in high school land, that's not someone you just walk up to and start talking to.  But now in this high school time warp, those people are not unapproachable.  They are friendly, we are only separated by a mere year in school.  We're all part of a bigger group of former Washburn graduates and we have so much in common.  I saw some old friends too, people that I have rich memories with that go back to junior high school.  To the days when we moved here from Michigan.  Funny, weird days (and I do mean weird) of being transplanted in a city from a small town with families and people we're introduced to as our new friends.  Turns out some of those people stuck and I have bonds with them that do not break.

I even had a cousin there.  The only other family in our bigger extended family that lived in Minnesota, and we went to the same high school.  It was kind of surreal to be sitting together, saying the same things and laughing how we did once upon a time only now we are 40-something and have had a mountain of different experiences and different lives.  But this one thing brings us together and we come from all places near and far, and we are friends again.  I saw old friends and even made some new ones; people whose pictures you recognize in some way but can't quite remember if you ever talked to them back in the day.  Then I realized that it was my loss for not stepping out and talking, because surely the people that are in front of me now and making me laugh have been good people all along.  

The next night was entertaining on so many levels.  We crashed the reunion - like I said, not my year, the year before.  Even now at our age, people look at you but can't place you or maybe can place you as not belonging there but say nothing.  That's what we call Minnesota Nice.  We walk through like teenagers that are afraid of getting caught.  All those insecurities come crashing down but the confidence that we feel now causes us to keep walking with our head up like we're supposed to be there.  But even if we officially didn't belong, we were welcomed with open arms to celebrate, dance, talk, and laugh. 

So over those two nights we danced, we partied, and we laughed so hard, we talked about boys and I'm happy to say even got attention from some of them and it still gave me the same thrill that it did then . . . because I was 17 again.  I stayed at my girlfriends house so we could talk for the next hour about the night behind us.    

The next day was back to the suburbs to my little log house in the country.  We watched football and talked and laughed as girls do.  These ladies, although all could not be there, are my sisters.  Since in my family I had only a brother and no sisters, I recruit sisters and the strength of those women get me through the bad times and now through some good times.  

So this birthday weekend was like no other, as my life transitions into something brand new that I create.  My Tim-angel on my shoulder is cheering me on to use the same enjoyment of the moment that I did with him to fully realize, experience, and LIVE this new life.  I got to start over . . . at 17.