Reunion Weekend

The beauty of such a weekend is that it reminds you of how much you really miss people you've spent the last five years despising. I really have missed these girls, and I was very glad to see them again.

When I think of all the things I thought back then, all the words I'd said about them, (I've written all down as is the habit, for fear one day I'll forget) I want to go back and change it all. I really wanted nothing more than to belong to something, be a part of a group, it's what I've always wanted, and going back, I see that that option was always available. Maybe they feared me just as much as I did them. Maybe we've disserviced eachother? I miss you all, I do. And seeing you, reminded me of my own worth. What is it about seeing a group of women in your same station and then spending a weekend with a group of men perhaps not that can make you appreciate so much more who you are? I remember everything, how I prized these girls, these beautiful girls who hit the marble floors with such grace I felt ugly beyond reason in the same vicinity. That didn't happen again.

And isn't funny that we're all, really, all the same? I once wrote that piece about feeling like a blaring red stroke on a canvas of lilac, I don't need to feel that way now, and wish I didn't feel that way then. I wish I knew then, who to tell to go to Hades, who to stick by. I wish I knew then why I was angry, why I felt the way I did. I wish I could label it then as I did now. Krissy, Krissy who I prized above all, told me she was unhappy. I had to admitt I don't feel that way anymore. I let go.

And Ma, when I thought of you in the bar with these girls, these girls you blamed for being crazy, the school for driving me to be the disappointment I was, when I tried to conjure up your face, Jen, I couldn't. And I want you to know I threw back my head and laughed, because it makes sense now. I'm sorry, Headmistress France, I let you down. I'm glad you knew what I didn't want to see; and thank you for never expelling me. And I want to make you proud, I do. Thank you for caring about me. I'm so sorry, really, I'm so sorry, I never understood. I get it now.

And six hundred years from now when I plan to end my life, I hope you'll remember me. I worry to think my daughter may never know about her mother, would she think it was funny to know her mother's name was scrawled on all the boys' bathrooms on the Upper East Side? Would she play on the team her mother started? Will she know about her mom's hair, her easy laughter, the paint on her skirt and her green nail polish? I hope she does. and one day, if it's still around, I'll give her all my endless accounts of the years. I want you to have what I never could. I want you to be born and to feel whole, never question yourself or anything about you. I want you to know your worth. I want you to know your worth to me, that I thought enough about you even before you born, because I never want to inflict the pain I knew. I don't want you to see that. I want you to know you came in to a world that needed and wanted you, even if you weren't a boy, even if you weren't dark haired with skin "that tans even in May," even if you weren't thin, even if you don't act like me. I want you to come into a life that is yours, and never feel the need to have to take it for yourself. I want you to know that I'm giving myself to you, and will never want it to be the opposite way. I want you to know that you are indeed loved, so much that it happened before you got here, and maybe if you never do. I'll take a boy just the same, but a boy could never understand me like you will. Boys are to cherish, girls to teach. I want most of all for you to be happy.

I want you to always realize, that if you ever do get into a bar at 1AM and drink Citron with your best friends you didn't know you had, that I want to be sure you can conjure my face, and I hope you laugh because of it.

I love you so much, and hope to meet one day.