As I studied our class photo we had on display, I found myself right there in line with my three best big-haired high school friends on the gym bleachers (along with all our many other friends/classmates) and realized that while we have all grown and matured and experienced countless joys and triumphs, and celebrations and milestones, and devastating life blows and griefs that none of us ever could have imagined, our core personalities are still recognizably, familiarly, the same.
Then later, after everyone had arrived and began to mingle and take their seats, I took in the goings-on of the room (as us hardcore introverts always tend to do in such situations) and noticed that out of the small percentage of our class who showed up, we had pretty much all navigated to the little groups we most often found ourselves forming way back then. I was not surprised by this as it has been the case in the other two reunions we've had in the past and I imagine it will be the same at any others we plan for the future.
Of course I was sitting at a table with my three formerly-big-haired friends who have remained among my closest and dearest over the past two and half decades. My BFF and I (as little as we see each other anymore) both showed up sporting black faux fur vests while our husbands dressed so much alike some probably wondered if they had called each other. We used to do that sort of thing often. At first it was on purpose.
I've told that story here before but in case you missed it...
We both moved to this area during the summer before our tenth grade year so we were both the new kids on the block and our friendship was truly formed from a shared misery and what we had both thought at the time to be the greatest torture and misfortune of our young lives. Given the circumstance, our friendship/bond grew very quickly, so much so that we thought it'd be just charming if we bought matching outfits at the mall one weekend that we'd then both wear to school Monday morning.
This was back in 1986, when pleated, puffy-sleeved rompers were all the rage. So we bought us a matching pair in a glorious shade of peach and even splurged on big arse matching peach hair bows for our big arse hairdos. Oh yes. We were fly. I don't think we made it to our homerooms before we were regretting our decision at a level of intensity neither of us ever thought possible. Everybody knew our names after that, though most of them just called us The Bobbsey Twins. Fun times those were. At least now, twenty-eight years later, we can laugh about it. I think it only took about ten.
After that unfortunate fashion catastrophe faux-pas we always called each other to make sure we were NOT wearing the same thing. Yet many times over the years since high school, we've showed up places in dangerously similar attire which is what happened with the matching vests (and husbands) Saturday night.
The thing is, I came this close to not buying that vest but the darn thing beckoned me. I was in Target at the beginning of last week when I saw three on the rack (only one was my size). I took it off, put it back, took it off, put it back, took it off, and finally, put it back for good before walking way. Then I put my reunion outfit together at home the next day and thought this could really, really use that black faux fur vest. What a shame I didn't buy it. I know it's sold by now.
This haunted me for three days before I rode back up there to find that thing still hanging on the rack where I'd left it. I thought it was fashion fate at the time but now I know it was just part best-friend-fashion-synchronicity and part God's sense of humor at work in my life again. Only this time? I could fully appreciate the joke.
Michelle was holding her twin vest (she said she got hot.)
Sadly (or maybe not so sadly) there is no known photo of the matching peach rompers but I do have this little gem of our senior year photography class, in all our big-haired glory...
Class of 1989
Wearing matching outfits is considered nothing less than scandalous in high schools. And they say those years are supposed to be the best years of your life!
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