Ghosts of the past

My 20th class reunion is coming up next year and I have decided that I am not going. I hadn’t really thought about the reunion that much. I am “friends” with people that I went to high school with on Facebook but hadn’t seen anyone since I graduated. Then someone added me to the high school reunion group and the talk and reminiscing started. I debated about and debated about it. And finally came to the decision that I wasn’t going to the reunion.
I went to a really small school. Most of the people that I graduated high school with I had known since kindergarten. There were 48 people in our graduating class. So after 13 years you know people pretty well. I had been made fun of in school for the majority of that time for some stupid reason or another. I was too friendly. I had too much hair on my arms. Some guys just started calling me slut; whore because they thought it was funny. Even though I was far from those names. It happened on a daily basis. Just stupid, stupid reasons I can say in retrospect. But when you are young they aren’t stupid. After 13 years of this, when graduation came I was ready to leave. Especially since I went to a small school because you can’t just find a different group or blend into the crowd.
The reunion brings up all the bad feeling I use to have about myself. Everyone is acting fake. Like none of this happened during all those years together. How convenient it is to forget that you were a major asshole. Lately I have been feeling not like myself. Mopey. Depressed. And I don’t know why. Never mind I’m happy with where I’m at right now. I have three beautiful children; I live in one of the most beautiful parts of the country. I have a husband who loves me and finds me just as attractive after being with me for 14 years. Just add a little bit more money and my life would be perfect. But, the feelings of the girl who felt like such a loser because of someone’s actions and words toward her are surfacing.
I remember going to college and having the epiphany that people actually liked me. It took me a long time to realize this about myself. I wasn’t some loser that people were going to laugh at. I had my good parts and bad just like everyone else. I was laughed at so much in school that it pains me to admit this. I had actually had forgotten about this. But, whenever I heard someone laughing in my vicinity I thought for a slight second, that they were laughing at me even though I didn’t know them. I had to stop myself and remind myself that I wasn’t back with these people. It was almost like I had PTSD from everything that happened in school. I met a friend in college that helped to change my life for the better. She helped me become who I am today. She took no bullshit from anyone and she is someone to this day that I think of whenever I think about how I am going to react to a tough situation.
It is crazy how when you think you have things together something knocks you for a loop. You think “You’re not that same girl anymore. They don’t know you. How dare they treat you that way. ” But they dare. And you’ve changed. So you plod on. Try to shake those ghost feelings of self-doubt. You work on letting go. You tell yourself don’t waste any energy on them because they don’t care about you. You know you and the people that care about you know you. And that’s the most important thing.