While many of my classmates are reveling at The Famous Pub (by now - after what was I'm sure a glorious homecoming victory), I find myself sitting alone on my sofa with no cable TV, a raccoon on my porch and a quite because the husband is on his 20th annual Lost Weekend golf trip with his high school and college buddies.  The setting is just right for an epiphany.  Or maybe just the mix of maintenance meds for the things time has battered my body with.  For whatever reason, I've realized I had some "devil" demons that needed addressing.

My senior year, while in the throes of diet pill addiction, I decided enough was enough.  I checked out of school after anatomy lab - my cat for dissection was pregnant, fer cryin' out loud - and with the smell of formaldehyde still on my hands, I took a large amount of the Dexatrim, wrote a brief note about the pain of adolescence and lay down, waiting to die.  Of course, with uppers, you don't drift away to sleep.  You lie there with your heart racing, thinking maybe you'd changed your mind about this death thing.  Fortunately, it wasn't my time.  I had amazing children to birth in my future, though I didn't know it at the time.

Why?  What was so out-of-whack then?  And why was I so reluctant to commit to the reunion activities this weekend?

Because for five years, I roamed the halls of Druid Hills as an impostor.  I was not who I wanted to be or who I somehow was perceived to be.  How on earth did I, Myra Moore, daughter of Jean who worked at McDonald's and Bud the printer from East Tennessee, become worthy of even the slightest notice?  Captain of the 8th Grade cheerleaders, Captain of the Soccer Cheerleaders (Coach Jurden liked me for some reason)... I was shy because I didn't think anyone saw me.  I thought I was invisible.  Then, in 9th grade, elected to serve my class as Treasurer along side such celebrities as Matt, Ida and Susan.  Me? From Medlock, the "poorer" of the two main feeder schools.  I was "gifted" but my parents didn't understand what that meant so they didn't "nurture" it.  I ambled along doing what I could and what was expected of me, but little else because I had no drive.  Sometimes, I pretended to have it.

I didn't feel comfortable sleeping over in the big houses of my new friends.  I didn't know their rules or their manners.  I didn't know how to dress or what to sleep in or how to sleep late.  And I was embarrassed by the car my parents picked me up in at the appointed time.

I mucked up my job as treasurer, a failure that still embarrasses me to this day.  I didn't know how to open a bank account for The Class of 1981, so I kept all the dues and funds in the metal box under my bed.  I reconciled it to the names given to me by Mrs. Brett to make sure everyone who paid was accounted for and got credit for their payment, but it was with tremendous horror and shame that I turned that sad box of loose change over to the next treasurer.  

I wanted to belong.  I felt most comfortable writing the 1700+ pages I "co-authored" with Barbara Bent. But when we drifted apart over some silly issue (in retrospect), I felt put afloat to find someplace new to fit.  I tried hooking up and fitting in the Carol, Sarah, Lori and Laura, but I wasn't a jazzy, arty, talented sort.  I. didn't understand soccer because it wasn't played at Medlock.  I'd never seen a musical.  And I preferred French to German.  So I pretended there as well.  I dated guys from Lakeside because I was a fraud at Druid Hills.  Painfully shy with conversation - ask Doug Harsch, Jason Brown or Graham Brett.  I may have been the worst dates they'd ever had because I couldn't think of a thing to say.

By the time we were seniors, I was a little off the deep end.  Beginning of a manic phase, tempered mainly by an amazing camaraderie with Bethany, who seemed to understand because she was struggling with her own identity.  I'd been hurt profoundly by someone I loved dearly, having something painful and private held up as a class project for independent study, which in turn led to a gross misinterpretation of my heart and who I was inside.

I confess to buying a big FAKE ring - a Diamonique from QVC - for the last reunion, in an attempt to appear more successful than I was.  I had a pretty prestigious job working as the Firm Administrator for Birmingham's most feared female divorce attorney.  My husband was in management with Vulcan Materials and my kids were both excelling in gifted programs.  Blah de blahbetty blah.  The only thing I didn't do was air-kiss everyone's cheeks.  "Dahling!  How have you been?  Well, we ah in Birminha-yam living in the most fabulous naybah-hood...  You simply must come swim sometime!"

Now, I am truly happy with who God has led me to be, after a few other struggles with addiction, a challenging (I cannot call her "disabled" though she is ADHD, BPD, OCD, ODD and a slew of other TLA's - that's the three-letter-acronym for "three letter acronym") daughter, a difficult marriage, and financial woes that have brought us weeping to our knees in prayer. But I love my job, adore my customers, am exceedingly proud of my son at Alabama (two articles published in the Crimson White so far this year - and there have only been two editions), and have got a relationship with my daughter that a lot of moms envy.  I am free to be who I am, a goofy but smart woman who wakes every day wondering who I can encourage or uplift today.  It's my honor and privilege to love others. I still have days when I feel invisible, but not so much since I was recognized in the Las Vegas airport by someone waiting to board another plane: "Aren't you the UPS lady on 280 in Birmingham?"  "Why, yes, I am..."  "I thought so - I always come to your store when I'm there because you're so nice."

I'd love my classmates to see me as I am, to meet them all again for the first time, but I am still that fearful teen who wonders if they will see the faux finish from 30 years ago.  I love what Facebook has done for letting me connect with people I didn't know then, who didn't see the ugly veneer - or just didn't care what kind of veneer I had since I wasn't "of them."  I have compassion for classmates who could have used it more then than now.  And I feel almost like I could hang - honestly - with the senior superlatives.

Except for maybe Doug.

Love every one of you and sure wish I could have said all this with a drunken slur at Famous Pub!