Cheaper Than Therapy

memory is a gift. cherish it.

The Friends

last night i watched The Diving Bell and the Butterfly…which, by the by, is easily one of the best movies i’ve ever seen…it’s the true story of Elle Magazine editor Jean-Dominique Bauby who suffers a massive stroke, leaving him mentally aware but completely paralyzed with the exception of his left eye. he literally blinks out his memoir. it’s amazing.

(ps. i tend to use the word ‘literally’ when i really mean ‘figuratively’…my boss AND Kristin AND Ted Mosby would not be happy to know i do this. but in this instance, he did LITERALLY blink out his memoir. hooray for good usage…ahem. moving on)

(no..i guess i did that wrong. again. seriously. this is what i get PAID to do. ha!)

so, after i finished watching the movie and the husband left for hockey (at 10:30. pm. canadian men are CRAZY) i was supposed to be packing for blogher…but i received an unexpected facebook message from a friend, and spent the entire night up, first im’ing with her and then re-reading my senior yearbook cover to cover.

“i’ve never had friends like i did when I was 12, jesus does anyone?” – Stand By Me

when asked “what were you like in high school?” celebrities always answer the same way…i was a giant dork. i was ugly. i was incredibly unpopular. high school was rough for me. and , obviously, you just know that someone is lying. there are people who loved high school.

and i’m one of them.

sure, looking back, i was chubbier than i am now, and spent two years with horrible bangs and when i finally grew them out i dyed my own hair and instead of red, it came out purple. just in time for my senior photo. (fabulous) and the fashion? can we not talk about the fashion?

nothing was more mortifying than showing up to school one day in your new gap vest (yes, it was a vest. and it was plaid. and it was god-awful) only to find that your 113-year-old English teacher is wearing the exact. same. one.

TRUE story.

the four of us. we were quite the posse (at least that’s what THEY called us back then. ‘the posse‘)

(only i went to an Orthodox Jewish school where you had to wear knee-covering skirts and sleeves…lest you spend your free periods in detention. guess who spent almost every one of her free periods in detention for fighting the man? um. yes. like daughter, like mother)

but the memories we made. they are still funny. like the time we wandered the streets of Boston trying to find a place that didn’t exist (Bontempo road?). and the time Eytan called Becca a ‘porker’ in the library. like discovering the Frappuccino. like the time we went to the Jerry Springer show and saw the REAL 911 EMERGENCY. like the time i cut ALL of Becca’s hair off. like the time we smashed my jeep on the way home from the Cranberries concert. like the fact that we tried to teach ourselves a foreign language by using Encarta. like the time that Vlad stole me a pair of bowling shoes….the music, the movies, the bowling (what? we are from Chicago…we bowled a lot), the mix tapes, the boys, the concerts, the shopping. the memories.

memories of a lifetime.

i just wish that the three of them were still in my life the way they were then. one is in New York. two are in Chicago. We are all doing different things. We are married. We are babied. we are expecting. we are doctors and speech therapists and writers. we are religious and not religious. i think of them a lot. and i miss them.

last night was like a little gift. a gift of memory. one of the only things that Jean-Dominique Bauby had left. his imagination, his memory, and his eye. it’s an important one…MEMORY. i’m thankful. and i think i’ll shall blink me out a memoir one of these days.

Comments

  2. I went to an all girl yeshiva- with the skirts and the sleeves. Oh and when we painted our nails in blue nailpolish they came around with nail polish remover. fun times!

    Mayas last blog post..8 months old

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  6. I too admit that I loved high school. I have some really great memories and I’m actually really looking forward to my 10 year reunion. (It’s in October.) I had a great group of 6 friends that we did everything together and I wouldn’t trade those memories for anything.

    Also we bowled a lot too! Maybe it’s an Illinois and a Texas thing?

    Lissas last blog post..Classic Melissa… The Underwear Edition Part 4549837

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  8. I was awesome in high school AND I was a total dork.

    My two favourite “literally” uses lately: “You can go online and literally take a test drive.” Um. No, you can’t. That’s almost certainly “virtually”. “I literally have my eye on you.” Ew.

    I never bought any of my yearbooks. I just never had the money and didn’t like asking my parents for cash. But a girl I had a crush on, and who I was pretty sure hated me in the 9th grade, sent me our yearbook from that first year of highschool.

    Backpacking Dads last blog post..GoogleHer? I don’t even know her

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  9. Detention, eh? At least you didn’t have a school skirt! 🙂

    I’ve been meaning to see The Diving Bell and the Butterfly; you just convinced me to add it to my Netflix queue.

    metalias last blog post..Sticky Fingers

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  11. John McCain’s time as a POW? More pleasant than my four years in high school. I totally should be famous after that experience. Alas, I am not.

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  12. I will admit that I totally loved high school and bawled for days when it was over. Not the school part, of course. I had a lot of friends and the fact we were all getting separated crushed me.

    Then I went to college and realized high school was lame.

    My high school fashion faux pas are numerous. I have to busy out the yearbook and look. I mean, HELLO I had bangs that took up half my head. That alone probably lost me some cool points.

    heathers last blog post..Wii All Scream

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  13. I’m one who didn’t love high school, but I did love that movie! I didn’t think I was going to make it thru the first 15 min or so, but then it really grabbed me. It’s one that sticks with you afterwards.

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  17. I love looking through my old yearbooks. So fun!

    And I have no idea how to use literally or figuratively either. I thought you used literally correctly in that sentence!

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  21. Figuratively speaking, I hated high school. I literally only skimmed the circle of cool people, not really accepted but not rejected either.

    I have no idea if I used those two words correctly. I probably should care if I did, but since I don’t get paid to write, screw it.

    Queen of Shake Shakes last blog post..36 Hours of Solitude

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  22. I thought high school was a blast.. I kinda ruled the school – never had to have a hall pass, the principal loved me, etc. I even was in this program where I got out of school for three hours to read to little kids for 45 minutes. And then I went to the mall. Just because I’m cool like that.

    Alas, I was also kinda a bitch in high school (even though I still maintain that I was just shy). Oh well.

    Sarahs last blog post..Girls Night Out

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  23. I didn’t love high school, nor did I hate it, most of the time. I had some fun but spent too much time wanting to be more popular. I had my own click of girlfriends tho, we were pretty tight and did alot of stuff together.
    Alas, I don’t know any of them anymore except my BFF who I reconnected with at my 20 yr reunion. Now we totally stay in touch and visit each other periodically even. She’s so much fun.

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  24. Oh, and I had it figured out by the time I started as a Senior – stopped caring what others thought and enjoyed myself alot more (also, I was the “token punk” at my Catholic HS – that was fun trying to fit my look within the uniform guidelines)

    monstergirlees last blog post..Jumping on the Bed – Day 2

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