Can someone pass me the hairspray please?

When I was seventeen years old, I was positive that in twenty years one of two things would have happened: Christ would have come or I would be dead. Twenty years to a seventeen year old is a hella long time. But, here I am staring twenty years in the face, daring it to tell me I am old.

The eighties were my times. They were the times of shoulder pads, big curly hair, British music and diet coke. It was a great time to be in high school, and my town was the perfect town to be a teenager.

My home town was a small town with three elementary schools, one junior high school, two restaurants and one stop light. Everyone knew everyone. All of my Dad's brothers lived in our town, so I had cousins my age all around me. It really was a wonderful place to be a child.

Sometimes I still feel seventeen, but the enormous tire around my stomach reminds me that not only am I not seventeen, I have four children and thirty-seven pounds of fat. Because of that lovely fat gift from my children, I swore I would never attend any sort of reunion event. I told myself they were archaic and silly. Besides, there is no reason to attend; I left my home town over fifteen years ago and frankly I never looked back.

At five o'clock on Friday night, I decided to attend the archaic and silly twenty year reunion being held. I had no time to stress over clothes, so I picked out the one shirt that was clean. I ran to Kohls to pick out a new necklace to go with my clean shirt. Then I realized I didn't have time to shed the extra weight I was carrying around, so I bought a girdle.

Yes, A girdle.

I tried it on at the store, and it made me look like I had magically lost some of that thirty-seven pound tire. However, I was stupid and forgot to give it the sit down test. Remember how disastrous it was the last time when I forgot the sit-down test?

A girdle is So. Much. Worse.

I put the girdle on again at home, and waited patiently for my friend-- whom I had not seen in YEARS—to come and pick me up. As soon as I got in the car and sat down, I realized my mistake. That lovely piece of material was able to squelch out a thirty pound tire around my stomach, but it was also squelching out my spleen. (I have no idea if a spleen can even be squealched… where is it anyway?) (Don't tell me. I don't want to know.) I kid you not, the further my friend drove, the higher my spleen rose. At one point, I actually started coughing and I thought I was going to find some important body part bouncing off the dashboard.

I was pretty panicked… what was I going to do for three hours, in a park, with no bathrooms, and people I hadn't seen in twenty years?

I stood the entire time. That's what I did.

It wasn't too bad, until it was time to move on to our next event… The movies. Our senior class rented out the local movie theater and had Ferris Buellers Day Off playing. We had free reign of the theater and honestly? It was fun; except for that bloody girdle.

We were in the bathroom, when I had a brilliant idea. I hollered out to my friend that I was going to take off my girdle. She started giggling like a school girl and I started disrobing. In the public bathroom. I had to take off all my clothes to get that freakin' girdle off. While I was doing that—praying that no one else came in-- I proceeded to give my friend a lecture:

"Listen. If you tell anyone about this, I swear to all things holy, I will deny it and call you a big fat liar."

When I finally got that stupid squelching girdle off, I felt so much relief. I actually started rubbing my big, fat thirty-seven pound tire and apologized for being so mean to it. I shoved that squelcher into my purse and went about putting myself back together.

It was at that point that I realized something: My old friends loved me in spite of my thirty-seven pound tire. There was nothing that needed to be hidden, because during the last twenty years, I have lived a good life. I have remained faithful to my religion. I have gotten an education and married a great man in the temple. I have four amazing children that make my life complete. What was there for me to be embarrassed about or ashamed of? Nothing.

One of my friends at the theater summed it up nicely. He said: I don't care where you live, how much money you're making or what kind of car you drive; however, I do care that you are happy. If you're happy, then I'm happy. That is the perfect sentiment. My wish for my high school classmates would be for them to be sincerely happy. Joyful even.

I was surprised with how many of my friends had chosen different life paths, even alternative life paths. Some of them were good, close friends and it surprised me to see how different and opposite our lives had become.

As I watched my classmates the next night at our dinner, mingling and re-connecting, I kept having a recurring thought: I was happy and I was happy because of the continued righteousness of my friends. It reminded me of the story in Alma when the Sons of Mosiah come home from their fourteen year missions and they see each other for the first time. They hugged and cried and rejoiced in each other's continued faithfulness. They felt joy because they had all waxed strong in the Lord… That was what I kept thinking about as I watched my archaic reunion unfold before me.

And I was glad I decided to attend.

I had been blessed in my youth to be surrounded by good kids. They encouraged me to make good choices, and chastised me when I didn't. They strengthened me until I was able to stand firm on my own two feet. They lifted me to a higher ground when I was down, and I am grateful. But not only that, I was thrilled to see how strong, firm and solid each of my close friends has become.

In my entire high school career, I can say that I was never offered a drink of alcohol by any of my friends. I never even had that temptation placed before me. Like, Ever. Those were the kinds of friends I had.

Maybe we were weird, nerdy, theater/seminary nerds, but I wouldn't have it any other way. Hindsight is twenty-twenty and I can see that it was a blessing for me to associate with those that I did… I am a better person for it. Friends do matter; Especially in high school. I had good friends and I still do.