The 17 Year Old Girl Came Out To Play

Wow, I can't believe I've not posted since last Thursday.

Life just got busy preparing to go out of town.

I am back and the reunion and trip to my home town was really great. I got to see so many of my old friends and act like I was 17 again.

I have to say - it was just really so much fun!

I danced too much and stayed up later than I have in years.

Some recaps:

The dress I spent so much time obsessing over?

One of my best friends from high school had the same dress on!

She looked great and we had a fun time with pictures and dancing together.

The best line of the night in regards to our dresses was from one of our classmates, "You two look great! Similar, but beautiful!"

Similar yes - down to our Spanx.

Which, according to my friend, you should never sleep in.

If you are ever somewhere and a band called the Zeros are playing, you should make it a point to see them. You will relive the 80's in full force. They played for our reunion and were awesome! They played tunes from Prince to the Cure. Seriously, they rocked the 80's for sure.

They even had light boxes we could dance on.

And yes, I did.

Oh, the things your high school friends can talk you into.

We ate from our favorite pizza place a couple times, visited my high school, saw my old locker, drove by the houses we grew up in and some of our old haunts. The craziest thing about visiting my hometown is how "at home" we felt. It simply felt comfortable and nice to be there. It is a beautiful small town and was a super place to grow up.

I only wish I would have had more time to catch up with everyone. My class was 500+ people and I am not sure how many were there. I didn't get to say hello to even a quarter of them, so I guess I will have to make it to my 25th now! There were many of my good friends from high school that did not make it and that was the most disappointing factor.

These people are doing amazing thing with their lives - doctors, teachers, world travelers, finding ways to give money to charities and raising super kids.

The best part about a high school reunion is just hanging out with people that know you in ways your adult friends can never know you. We all grow up, we change, we mature. But here is this entire group of people that just helped you move from a kid to adult. The time you invest in friendships in high school is immense. There is just not that much time to put into a friendship now.

One of my friends commented on how we don't realize on graduation day that most of us will not see each other for the next 20 years. It doesn't even occur to us at that point when we are celebrating and thinking about our college plans, that these friends of the ubermost importance, we will not see again until we are married, have kids and mortgages.

All in all - I am beyond happy where I am now and it was a great reminder of the happiness my friends in high school brought me so many years ago. It was a hard time with my family and my friends were my outlet from that. I can look back and say I wish I had taken school more seriously. You know, studied harder and skipped less class. But, it was good to go back and just share a couple of days with these people that made such an impact in my young life. While I am a different person in so many ways, it reminded me of the 17 year old girl that still lives inside and how much fun she really is!

I am going to have to bring her out much more often to play.