Facebook brought us all together. Yes it did. Somehow I discovered the joy of “Creating An Event” and an event did occur. We all hadn’t seen each other since the the first Gulf War when we were wee and when hair was still big. We had been a group of lost kids involved in JROTC and all things Top Gun, and now here we were, adults and all.

We actually had jobs and some had spouses and others had spawn. Some of us had turned conservative and bought stuff marked “Made in the USA” and drank Bud Lite, and others had gone and became toking hippie nudists. But one thing was still the same. If someone was goofy as a teen, he was still goofy as an adult. If someone was shy, he was still shy. If someone was loud, he was still the loudest person in the room. And if someone was a drama queen (ahem!), she was still a neurotic drama queen. We were still all the same, essentially. We all fell back into the same roles: the clown, the inspirational leader, the mellow observer, the enthusiastic good guy, etc. It was as if 20 years hadn’t passed.

But the marked difference between our teenage self and our adult self is: we had grown to accept ourselves, ‘faults’ and all. Once upon a time in teenager-land, we shivered while pretending to be a forceful leader when all we wanted to do was listen. We stifled ourselves because we were teased for being loud. Maybe we tried to be mean in order to shake off the fact that we were just goofy.

But no, all that angst was gone. It was replaced with a peace of knowing that no matter how goofy, how loud, how mellow, or how odd one was, all of us came together 20 years later because we had loved one another JUST THE WAY WE WERE. All this time that we’ve been resisting who we were; we’ve been PERFECT in our IMPERFECTIONS, and yes little Timmy, we have always been loved. We just needed time and experience to learn to love ourselves.

Sometimes it’s nice to have reunions, because we get to see what changes we’ve chosen to make in order to improve ourselves (better fitness, better job happiness, etc) and to see that the best things about us… simply gets better with time.

Merry Christmas YOMYOMFers!