A Reunion I'm Looking Forward To

This weekend is my 10 year high school reunion. I won't be going. It's nothing against my high school. I loved my school and had many friends there. It just doesn't look like it's going to work out. Michael Paul will be working. My sister can't go and I don't really want to go alone. Although it would be fun to catch up with people I haven't seen or talked to in ten years, it's just not worth the effort to me.

However, there is one reunion I am very much looking forward to. It will occur in 5 more years. 2015 is a very special year for me and my two closest high school friends. Here we are back in 2000:

Katie, me, and Valerie

I was blessed to have two of the neatest girls for friends in high school. They actually didn't go to my school; we became friends at church. Valerie and I grew up together and really started clicking in middle school. She was funny, intelligent, and she 'got' me. She also had a beautiful voice and I always made sure I sat next to her in youth choir because she made it easier for me to sing. She would share her Halls Defense citrus cough drops with me and we would chat while the other sections were rehearsing. That's probably how our friendship started. Valerie and I were sopranos but Katie was an alto and thus missed out on our youth choir fun and bonding. Then our junior year of high school the three of us decided to sing with the adults in the Living Christmas Tree and very quickly, "Valerie and me" became "Valerie, Katie, and me". Katie was just as witty and smart as Valerie and I was constantly laughing when I was with them. Unlike most of the girls I knew in high school, they weren't petty or gossips or boy crazy. They were genuine, thoughtful, and mature.

So anyway, back to the importance of 2015. That is the year that we decided we would open our time capsule. In 2000, the three of us made a time capsule out of a large pipe and buried it in my back yard. I think we chose my yard because I knew for sure my parent weren't going anywhere for at least 15 years. In it we put small reminders of some of the memories we had together and wrote letters in which we described where we thought we'd all be in 15 years. I don't know about them but I'm pretty sure what I wrote is going to be quite wrong for all of us. I don't think anyone's life unfolds the way they imagine it will at age 18. Katie is a lawyer now in Louisiana and Valerie is a minister's wife and mom to two girls in Alabama. Valerie and I met up a few months ago and I snapped this picture of Keziah with her two precious girls.

When we buried our capsule, I remember thinking 15 years was basically forever. At 18, 15 years is basically your whole life. Now I know how quickly 10 years really goes by and I kinda wish we had said 2020. I very much look forward to the day we open our time capsule and reminisce about high school. 'Til then, I mostly keep up with Valerie and Katie in blog world. (You can check them out here and here.)