you live and you learn, right?

I am not a normal girl.  

My tender years were surprisingly normal, I mean as normal as one can get growing up in rural Wyoming. I rode horses, played barrel racer (lofty dreams I tell you), had a best friend or two (Jolyn I still hate you for moving), went tubing down the crick, was forced into garden slavery during summers, went camping all the time, learned to drive a stick shift on a tractor, ate some serious bugs tooling around on Big Red the 3 wheeler (remember those?), played nursemaid to the bunnies orphaned by my dad's swather (POOR BUNNIES THEY ALL DIEEEEEED because I am a terrible nursemaid that's why), mauling litters of kittens and giving them all rhyming names like Milo and Shiloh, dodging cows while walking up the lane to meet the school bus.  I mean you get the drift here right?

Then I hit puberty and the proverbial shizz hit the fan.  My teeth went all snarly, my eyebrows were like two furry caterpillars gone rogue, who knows what my hair was doing!  Adolescence was a real kick in the face I tell you.  But the worst part about it was my friends.  Adolescence for them meant high school boys and getting.it.on.  I mean gross, small towns I get it, there's not a lot to do except each other, but honestly people, they took it to an entirely new level and I wasn't going anywhere near that hot soup of ew.

So I did school and sports instead, got made fun of, called a goody-goody suck up, Miss Perfect, snob, self-righteous Mormon girl, blah blah blah.  I was never a trembling wall flower or door mat, that just isn't me, but teenage girls can be cruel.  As if my fragile feminine psyche needed any more weight on it's already too full plate.  I missed my friends,  I didn't like who they'd become.  They were too busy with their boyfriends to make much time for me, too busy doing things I didn't find particularly appealing either.  I mean a standing Saturday night keggar only holds so much appeal for someone like me.  

I get how they saw me.  I was an over achiever, I did try hard, I wasn't the most attractive, I was tall, solid, and horrifically awkward at times (okay always) and most of the time I was unapologetic about it either.  The glaring difference between me and them was that I always knew who I was and what I wanted and that I sure as hell wasn't going to find it in that town or even that state.  I guess at times maybe that sort of attitude does come off as self-righteous or maybe even flavored with a bit of the "I'm better than this" frame of mind, because you know what, by my standards I was.  

So I left, and quick.  Graduation came and 2 weeks later I was out the door.  My parents left soon after and rarely have I gone back since.   I've lost touch with most of my friends from those days, on purpose.  I've seen a few here and there, caught up with a few on facebook (whenever I do facebook that is).  From what I've seen most of them have grown up, have kids of their own, made some big mistakes, learned from them and became adults.  But the weird thing is, I still don't have much of a desire to reconnect.  My 10 year high school reunion is supposed to be this spring and I haven't done much in the way of trying to make that happen (Senior class president, it's supposed to be my job).

I guess the real point of this story is that I should be more grateful towards those old high school friends.  Yes, because they helped shape me into the person I am today and I am generally awesome most of the time, crazy, but awesome.  It's the whole refiner's fire concept I suppose.  

But more of the reason I should be grateful to them is that they helped me appreciate real friends in my life when they finally came a long, and come a long they certainly did. 

Now that I'm 28, a grown woman by any standards, I finally have the friends I've always wanted.  The kind that send you surprise packages in the mail because they know how deep and burning your love of mail is, or better yet the kind that send you cadbury mini eggs in those packages or journals for recording  deep and ponderous thoughts, the kind that spend all summer with you at the pool or going on walks and commiserating with you about how bad it sucks to be so poor, the kind who will gladly babysit your kid or bring you dinner or send you a random text asking how you are.  The kind who will rescue you from the dregs of winter to spend a few days with them in the sun, the kind who find all sorts of owl nonsense to fuel your ridiculous affinity for such things.  

These women are the ones I want in my life for always because they love me, they look past my awkwardness and laugh when I'm being an idiot, which lets be honest, is most of the time....  They're smart, they're funny, they laugh at my jokes, we share treats, runs to Target, children, and lunch at Thai Village.  How much better could it get?  Okay well I'd prefer to be back in my old neighborhood but that's besides the point.  

Really I must thank you high school friends for sucking so bad because you made me appreciate what I've got now so much more.

And now I will end because this is getting seriously sappy.  

girl power, hi-ya

if you're from that town and reading this, don't take it personally, high school just sucked for me in a big way...