Over the weekend I attended my 25th high school reunion. I know what you’re thinking: “How can she be that old when she looks so good?” Fair question, my friend, but the truth is I was a child of the eighties and it’s been a quarter of a century since I walked the halls of my dear Sacred Heart Academy, an all-girls catholic school complete with nuns and weskits.

Fortunately, I am a twin, and my sister and I decided to go together, along with our three besties from freshmen year, for both moral and forgotten-name support. I honestly wasn’t thinking too much about appearances until Sis told me of her recent Botox injections and spray tan expenditure; she was clearly stepping up her game. But with an aversion to needles and no time to counter the pasty-white ginger skin, I showed up in all my natural glory.

Turns out, most of us looked great. A few women I did not recognize; they were either much heavier or much thinner that I remembered, and there was one gray-haired gal I mistook for a 1970’s alum. But all in all, our class has held up incredibly well. Of course I credit Facebook for keeping the shocking transformations to a minimum; stalking old classmates does have its advantages!

Actually the only surprise was that every single lady I spoke with was as nice as could be, even if I hadn’t particularly liked her back in the day. We talked about kids and husbands and divorces and cancer and parents and careers, and of course, our favorite memories of SHA. I learned our class had been widely regarded as the worst in decades. [Due to our behavior, the school board revoked senior lunch privileges and retired the student smoking “pad”. Furthermore, there are no championship athletic banners for the years 1988-1992, which might explain why I, at a very average 5’6”, started at center for the varsity basketball team. Desperate times called for a clearly desperate measure!]

Hopefully our fiftieth will be just a lovely. I, for one, can’t wait. Peace out.