Reuniting with yourself

I have already been invited to my high school’s five year reunion, even though it’s not until November.  Back in high school I never understood why people would want to skip their reunions, why they wouldn’t be thrilled to get to catch up with all their old classmates.  Back in high school, I also thought that I would much rather have a reunion with all of my theater friends from all the different grades than have a reunion with just my graduating class.  Well, I have just seen on facebook but not actually been officially invited to (though I’m sure I’d be just as welcome there as anyone else from it) a high school drama club reunion.

So I find myself thinking... Why is it that the very same people that I cried over having to leave and couldn’t wait to reunite with at the time, now give me a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach at the thought of being put into a scenario where I’m forced to socialize with them all once more?  That the funny feeling is something reminiscent of dread is not lost on me.  

I think the issue of the reunion says something about change.. changing as a person.  The reason I was so sad to give up those friends is because I was resisting the impending change and growth that I could feel being forced onto me and I just didn’t want to happen -- but knew it had to... so I teared up in saying my goodbyes to the upperclassmen graduating, and to everyone when the time came for me to graduate.... I was afraid I couldn’t move on, afraid of having to make new friends, afraid of having to discover things about myself that it was much more comfortable not to, very afraid of growing apart from the only romantic love I had ever known and so tried desperately to resist anything that might pull me away..

But once that change really came upon me, I never really looked back much.  I grew up, and I grew to like the person that I’ve become far more than the one I used to be.  And I guess the reason I’m not thrilled at the thought of seeing all those people again is the fear of that harsh blast from the past and the phenomenon that seems to occur with it: you revert back to your old self, your old ways... your old insecurities, your old habits and behaviors and ways of interacting with people - things you’ve spent the past five years outgrowing - could very well inevitably manage to creep back up on you and tackle down the more secure, confident person you’ve become, leaving you feeling less than thrilled about this reunion.

And if you do manage to resist all that crap..... then you’re left with the realization that you no longer know how to interact with those people you used to spend every day with and you’re stuck awkwardly trying to do it anyway.  

And yet... the verdict’s still out on whether I want to go to any of these reunions or not.  The craziest thing is that some part of me is still intrigued, still wondering about how things would turn out.

What a Year

I'm sitting on an Amtrak train en route to Washington DC to celebrate the new decade in our nation's capitol with some wonderful Villanova friends, and it is suddenly occurring to me that today is the last day of 2009.. which, when I think about it, was a really eventful year of my life.

What happened in 09?
I made a movie
I graduated college
I played a big part in my final VSMT show
I lived in LA
I had some identity crises
I studied at Stella Adler, Mike Lemon, & Kathy Wickline
I made a daring career choice
I lived at the beach
I spent a whole lot of time in New York City
I committed to my girlfriend
I came out to my extended family
I lost 15 pounds
I rented a car
I started a blog
I went on a cruise
I discovered an interest in international cinema
I read books and listened to audiobooks
I started cooking meals
I cleaned out my room and all my boxes
I ate interesting foods at nice restaurants
I went to a lot of parties
I skiied, cycled, jogged, did pilates and yoga
I ran 2 miles without stopping for the first time in my life
I saw Nova make it to the Final Four (and even cared about it)
I saw gay rights get rejected from too many places, but accepted into a few
I saw a black president come into office - something I really never thought would happen so early on in my life
I made a ton of new friends from many different groups
I realized which friends will probably stick with me for life
I rode cars, buses, trains, planes, and ships
I interned for a famous person, a big company, and a small company
I lived in 3 different apartments and 2 different houses in 4 different states

2009 was a huge, life-changing year for me, if I really think about it. I don't think I could really sum it up as the "Year of ____", as many try to... well, maybe a year of -- as most years are -- growing up.



- Posted from my iPhone

Ho Ho Ho, and a bottle of Grey Goose

Do you remember when you stopped believing?

I remember that I tried to hold on for as long as I possibly could, and that I still tried to believe long after I really didn’t quite anymore.  Even after I started picking up on hints from TV sitcom and cartoon parents who said things about not wanting the kids to find out Santa isn’t real (come on TV writers, why must you spoil it for your younger audiences?), even after my cousins and I started catching on that the guy in the Santa suit at our Christmas Eve parties bore a striking resemblance to our Uncle Scott, who always happened to be conveniently in the other room washing dishes when Santa visited (though one year they had our grandmom wear the suit instead just to throw us off!), even after Jacqueline & her sister from our swim team told my brother & me one summer about how they had spied on their parents wrapping presents and putting them under the tree the previous Christmas Eve (this was pretty hard evidence to refute) - I refused to stop believing.  I had such a faith in this magic that just had to exist in the world that I did not want to let go.

But some time around the age of 9 I guess I let the building evidence get to me.  The last straw was, funny enough, my presents on Christmas morning -- brand name presents.  I remember thinking, “Why would Santa bring me colored pencils that say The Gap on them instead of making them himself in his workshop?”  And then a few packages later I received a cassette tape with a price tag LEFT RIGHT ON IT from The Wall -- why would Santa outsource to The Wall?  Apparently “Santa” was a little overtired and got a little sloppy that year.  It never occurred to me that I had picked out many of my gifts every year in catalogues and commercials before I received them, and that they were obviously brands too - Mattel, Barbie, Fisher Price.... But this year, somehow even more than the price tag, those Gap colored pencils (of all things) did it to me, and my last stitches of faith didn’t immediately drop and smash like a rock but sort of feather-glided away from me in the air.  

Still, even after my true belief was gone, I kept it up anyway.  I didn’t admit my not believing to my parents until a couple years later.  And I continued to play my favorite December game, where I pretended to be a toy-making elf named Sterra (I am sharing some pretty private details here) with my friends, my brother, or by myself.  And even after I was a little too old to keep that up, I held onto my Christmas spirit.  Whenever that time of year rolled around, a big part of me turned into an excited little kid again.. even when the religious aspects of Christmas didn’t mean as much to me anymore... and I couldn’t wait to experience all of our adorably lame family traditions like singing Christmas carols while Aunt Jeanne plays piano (and almost no one can carry a tune).

So where did it go?  I mean my real, true Christmas spirit somehow just hasn’t been there the past few years like it was for so many years before.  And it has something to do with my comfortability with my family.. My spirit took a low blow that first year the Crane cousins decided that instead of being all excited about singing carols, it would be more fun to play drinking games - even though every other day of the year drinking games would have sounded great to me, something about adding this to our Christmas Eve party felt wrong somehow.. And then as I started having to hide my personal life from my extended family (on both sides), I started sort of dreading the family events I’d once been impatient waiting for.. instead I was anxious awaiting the inevitable “So, what boys are you dating?” and the “Good for you, you’re single!” talk that followed, as I sadly watched my cousins with their boyfriends & girlfriends and missed my own.  So I dropped a little more cheer and picked up a little more martini.  And grew up a little more, finally, after fighting it all these years.

And this year, everything will be different.