the ten-year

1999. Party like it’s. Yeah. Uh. Uh.

It’s probably no surprise to anyone who knows me, but I’ve never been cool. I don’t have “it,” whatever “it” is. The ability to be hip and outta sight is somehow not part of my DNA. I’m not, thank God, quite as socially awkward as I was when I was seventeen, but I’ll never be quite on. Perhaps because 80 percent the time I don’t care if I am or not. There is the occasional stab of longing to fit in better, but in general I’d much rather relax into simply being me and not get my knickers in a twist about meeting other people’s expectations or fitting neatly into a category. I don’t know how, for one thing—and I think the energy it would require to learn was lost down that same drain as that elusive period in junior high when every girl is supposed to learn how to put on makeup and do their hair. I’ll never get that back, either. Drat.

But life goes on. And I still believe that I would have missed out on a significant number of good things if I spent the time worrying about what my hair looked like. For example—every time I drive with the windows down. Glorious. But I digress.

As the years began to trickle by, I always said I had no massive expectations for my ten-year reunion. But deep down, I did. I still do. It’s tiny, but it’s there—that ridiculous but hard-to-kill hope that somehow, magically, I will enter that room filled with people who knew me when my cheeks were round with baby fat and I will be transformed into coolness.

This is not Truth, and I know it. But the thought persists. Fortunately, I have other thoughts, too, and I use them to do battle with the expectations of this culture and Hollywood. I do not always win outright, but I will never surrender. I am magnificent. I am lovely. I am cherished. I have been carefully crafted by a loving hand. I am not screwed up. Repeat. I am not screwed up.

And my value is not dependent upon the works of my own hands, but upon the price Jesus was willing to pay to set me free from sin. All the prom queens and clique princesses in the world can’t put a dent in that.

The truth is, we grow neither better or worse as we age, but simply more ourselves. I wish I could remember where I read that, because it’s groovy. And I think it’s right on the money. When I stand in front of my classmates, I won’t be better, or more interesting, or more worthy of attention and popularity and hoopla—I’ll just be more me. That’s it. Plain and simple. Take it or leave it. There’s only one opinion that ultimately matters to me—and it surely doesn’t come from the BCHS class of 99.

Now all I need to do is remember that. And smile.