Nineteen years ago yesterday, my high school sweetheart got married. No, not to me, though I was there. It seems like all of us were there - a million years ago and just yesterday. We came together from our post-high school mini-diaspora, convening on a cruise ship leaving Miami. Three of us delayed by snow in Denver -- a blizzard much like today's -- barely made it. We were so relieved that we beelined for the bar on the top deck and hit the frou-frou drinks, wondering where everyone else was. Turns out everyone else was getting the safety demonstration. We three were forever after designated the unicorns, destined for extinction, should the boat go down.
Kevin and Linda were the first among our group to marry. The first to have a baby -- who's now a senior in high school herself, planning to launch out to the east coast come fall, ivy league schools willing.
Nothing about this is new. The world turns, times change. Turn around and you're four, turn around and you're grown. Sunrise, sunset, seedlings turn overnight to sunflowers. So many songs about it. The last from Fiddler on the Roof, which we staged in high school, Kev playing Tevye. Now Gwen Stefani sings "If I Were a Rich Girl," in a ragga remix.
There are rumors of a reunion tour for us: a cruise next January to celebrate 20 years. Unless the ivy league schools come through with acceptances only and no scholarships. And who knows who would make it? Our diaspora is entrenched now, our lives have traveled so far down the diverging pathways that we haven't communicated in years.
But, hey, the unicorns made it.
(Happy anniversary, Kev & Linda)
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12 years ago
And there, I’m afraid, the comparisons between Gwen Stefani and The Kev must end. On her worst day, hair up in curlers, mud-pack on her face, shuffling around in a natty old flannel robe, Gwen Stefani is so much hotter than me that it’s unmentionable.
ReplyDeleteI mean, terminally ill in a hospital bed, with a sickly palor and sundry support tubes sticking out of her, Gwen Stefani is still so much hotter than me that we cannot be mentioned in the same sentence.
I’m saying Zombie Gwen Stefani, risen from the grave and lurching about with ichor oozing from her decaying, undead flesh, still…
Well, you get the idea.