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Q Parenting Archive
<< Back to List | Q Parenting - September 2006A few weeks ago, we went to my fifteen-year high-school reunion.
?Fifteen years?? everyone says to me. ?Wow, you must have had a small class to have a reunion every five years.?
Yes, we did: My graduating class of Yankton High School in Yankton, South Dakota, was comprised of about 170 graduates. But no, we don?t: This is the first reunion my class has had. To no one?s surprise, no one ever organized a ten-year reunion. (My class was not known for its class pride, civic pride, or even good personal hygiene.)
A few years ago I happened to run into a classmate at the Mall of America. It was delightful to run into her, and we talked for a few minutes (but only a few?we were both running late for movies we?d come to see, and quite honestly we didn?t have much to talk about). ?We ? didn?t have a reunion last year, did we?? I asked her. ?Oh, Gawd, no,? she said. ?At least, none of us heard about it if we did.? (?None of us.? Meaning she kept in touch with some classmates. Weird.)
So last year some of my class drank too much and decided to put this together. I got the invitation months ago but kept delaying the decision whether to attend. After graduation, I had turned my full attention to college (and to the woman I was obsessed with, but that?s a given with an 18 year old). Even though I moved only to a state university less than 30 miles away from the house I?d grown up in, it proved far enough eventually to sever every tie I had with high school. I did go back a few times that first year to participate in debate meets as a judge (it was a paying gig, and I reveled in my role as One Who Metes Out Cosmic Justice in the High-School Debate World: rewarding the kind of debater I was, and sticking it to the kind of debater I always hated). But I quickly lost contact with even my closest friends. And I had no interest in connecting with the graduates who stayed in town. Losers.
So now it?s April, and I?ve got this invitation, and I am horrified to realize that though I?ve spent the last 15 years not thinking about these people, all I can think about now is which shoes I?m going to wear. When to get a haircut (close enough to the reunion that it will look Hip Minneapolis sharp, but not brand-new). Whether to wear contacts or get the new glasses I was thinking about.
Oh, right, and how I?m going to handle coming out to all these people.
But Karyn insisted. She thought it would be fun. ?I want to meet your friends!? she said. But I don?t really feel like they are my friends, I whined silently. They all kept in touch and talk about things like how we didn?t have a ten-year reunion. Me, I evaporated. Now I?m going to show up with a woman on my arm, and that?s all anyone will want to talk about. That, or the silence will be deafening. And that doesn?t sound like fun for us. I have nothing to prove to these people, and it feels like I?d be going just to prove that. Let?s stay home.
But Karyn insisted, in her bubbly, fun way. And I gave in, because she?s so damn cute. So that?s how we found ourself a few Friday nights ago at the Class of 1991 Happy Hour, held at the Waterfront Gourmet Grill. You see, Yankton is located on the Missouri River. The Waterfront Gourmet Grill is not. Because ?Waterfront? had to be in ironic quotation marks, I figured ?Gourmet? probably was, too. (In fact, ?Grill? wasn?t really accurate either, as almost everything I saw was fried.) I sniffed to Karyn on the way in that the beer popular with the locals is a Summit knock-off, down to the very label. (But man, can you drink cheaply in South Dakota.)
So, how did it go? Well. These people, my classmates, my brothers and sisters and sun and moon for four years, did really well. I think word had percolated among the ones with local ties that I had registered a woman as my guest, so most people took it in stride. And the non-locals, the ones who have freed themselves of South Dakota, have shaken off some South Dakota provincialism. It?s a big world out there, and they get it.
In about ten minutes I went from guardedly optimistic to feeling like the world?s biggest asshole. Jesus, get over yourself! I thought. No one actually cares! No one is being rude to Karyn! No one is going to look sideways at my mom at the grocery store and mutter something to their shopping companion! Just relax and enjoy this!
So I did. One of the biggest punk-ass jerks in my class is now a decorated Green Beret who bought me a drink, so I didn?t ask him about the time he threw gum in my hair while sitting behind me with a bunch of his punk-ass jerk friends at a basketball game. One of the most impressively bee-yotchy girls I?ve ever known is about to begin student teaching. Girl Gone Wild Tara now works with at-risk youth. Stealthy Funny Pat is now a PA. Clint is a college softball coach. Man, I miss you guys! I love you guys!
And then the questions started.
It?s one thing to show up as Big City Dyke, with your Hip Minneapolis haircut, your new shirt that perfectly complements your contact-lensed eyes, and your bubbly, fun partner who is just so great, oh my God, have you met DeAnna?s partner Karyn, she?s a hoot. Mention that you?ve got kids, and Happy Hour slams on the breaks to let Lesbionic Reproduction 101 merge into the car-pool lane.
?How did THAT happen?? ?Do they have the same father?? ?Which one is yours and which one is hers?? ?Wait, you can ADOPT each other?s kids? That?s LEGAL? Are you SURE??
Maybe it was the ?Gourmet? food. Maybe it was the cheap, cheap alcohol. Or maybe it was the generally good vibe of being around generally good people who were genuinely happy to see me and just wanted to know more about my world. Maybe they missed me, too. Or maybe I am relaxing into my own identity as a mother. Whatever it was, I didn?t feel impatient with the same questions (over and over and over). I didn?t call them on their biases, their presumptions, their ignorance. While I was filling out adoption paperwork and strategizing lawyer choice to maximize the chances of getting a cooperative judge, Punk-Ass Jerk was getting his eardrum blown out in Afghanistan. Quiet Jon was wooing Earnest Kelly. Bee-yotchy was dealing with her firstborn, who was already seven years old. How many times did they each have to answer the same questions I was asking them?
It?s a big world out there. And it?s filled with people who are going to ask, ?Are you his real mom?? when they meet our family. And I just figured out that that?s okay. It doesn?t mean they don?t like me, or that they are imposing any sort of value system on us. It just means they don?t know about this kind of family. And that?s okay, too. Because it?s a big world out there. | |
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