Months ago I wrote a post about how I had been unpopular and miserable in high school, and how I had probably been unfair to the people who (I believed) were persecuting me. It was the classic lament of the outsider with a fillip of Buddhist philosophy and a hint of possible redemption.

I concluded that post by mentioning that a 30^th reunion was in the works for this summer, and that a roster of assignments was posted on the “OHS ‘80” Facebook page. I had, on that page,  been listed as the party in charge of “hospitality.”  I was pathetically, ridiculously delighted by this recognition. Someone, some Cool Person, had actually noticed that I do a lot of catering, and wanted to include me in the reunion – even place me in a position of responsibility - despite the fact that I had never been included in the keggers, the convoys to Fort Lauderdale, or the parties in the gigantic faux Tudor mansions of the Farrah-haired elite. My classmates post pictures of those trips and parties on Facebook, and they represent an entirely different universe than the one I inhabited from 1976 to 1980. They are always tan, always beautiful, and the girls seem perpetually to be sitting on the lap of some boy who terrified me, one arm around his thick, polo-collared neck, a plastic cup of beer in one hand and a cigarette dangling from the other. They raise middle fingers at the camera, they look defiant and radiant, and like they probably just had sex, or were just about to. I missed all of that.

My heart opened a bit when I saw that some member of that elite corps had reached out to me through the interworld. Bygones were bygones, and I envisioned a wonderful party at which everyone involved revealed herself to be deeply kind, compassionate, human, released from the bonds of 30-year-old stereotypes. The guy who called me “Ann Fan Fat” and “Pizza Face” would tell stories about his struggles in life, and we would become fast friends. The girls who savaged me about my clothes, my hair, and my clumsiness in gym class would turn out to have been forged by the fires of adulthood into something gentler and more approachable. They would congratulate me on the hors d’ouevres and I would look at pictures of their children.

Let me make it clear that this was not an easy change in perspective. I am pathologically anxious, and I still struggle with issues about my appearance that can be traced directly back to hitting adolescence in a school full of affluent, attractive people and a caste system that made India look like the crowd at a Dead concert. I have, as an adult person with a child in her shopping cart, ducked into the cat food aisle to avoid encountering a certain tan, frosted, kitten-heeled classmate who seems always to be at the grocery store when I’m there. I’m still afraid of her, and vaguely ashamed of my wild hair, my flowing garments, and my patent inability to jump in the minivan and play a few sets of tennis at The Club.

I have also seen pictures from the 20^th reunion, at which every woman photographed was wearing what I would describe as a “cocktail dress,” fitted and armless, and was bronze of limb, white of tooth, and perfectly coiffed. No matter how irrational one’s fears and biases (and mine were actually not all that irrational)  it is hard work to forget the past, and wipe clean the proverbial slate. It feels dangerous and unwise. It is like dropping my sword and offering my un-armored chest to the enemy in a gesture of peace-making.

About three months ago, it seemed like I ought to start planning for the reunion. We needed to secure a venue, and plan food, and drinks; I also wanted to coordinate with the classmates (also snatched from high school obscurity) charged with publicizing the event and finding contact information for the “lost.” I sent a cheerful e-mail to the creator of the class Facebook page, asking whether I should get started, and whether she had anything in mind. She responded that the assignments on the Facebook page had been “kind of a joke,” and that they would let me know if they needed any help. “Touché,” and all that.

So the reunion is in two weeks. Two friends are coming in from different coasts, and they are adamant that I should go, it will be fun, and (this is the serious leverage) that even though they were both shunned in high school, they are open to this and I should be, too. We’ll have our own table. We’ll leave if it’s uncomfortable. They both went to the 20^th and people were really nice, even those most likely, historically, to be incredibly vicious.  The more I explain that I just don’t want to go, the harder they try to persuade me. They both read my earlier piece on popularity, and they wonder where all of that open-mindedness went. They are real friends, smart, interesting people, and I plan to see them both as much as humanly possible while they are here. I don’t want to go to the reunion.

In the end, I may go and I may not go. I do have a big, handsome husband to take with me, and I could probably come up with something to wear that makes me look less like a refugee from a commune outside San Francisco where I recently left my bread baking. I could make it a priority to get back to that place of open-minded ease, and remind myself that I have nothing to be ashamed of – my life has been a good one, I have a wonderful family, an abundance of friends, and interesting and satisfying work. I am not that overweight, acne-spotted girl with uncontrollably frizzy hair and a “kick me” sign on her back.

But I am afraid, deeply and disturbingly. I don’t want to be that girl again, don’t want to revisit that place of inadequacy, despair and the frantic need to reject before I am rejected. I don’t want to go to the reunion. But maybe I will. 

Photo: My graduation in 198o. That's me, far left, with no nose.......