Take a walk down memory lane with me

Back in 1978, a new girl moved into our school sometime after eighth grade had already started. Let's call her Lily. She was quiet as a church mouse and just as shy. The way I remember it, I singled her out in my English class right away and decided that I would like to be friends with her. I don't know if that's actually the way it happened or not; nevertheless, she became one of my best friends and we remain close to this day (although not geographically).

I guess I wasn't the only one who took notice of cute, shy Lily. There was a boy in band with us named Mitch who also set his sights on her. They began "going together" and ended up dating for like 4 years. (Lily apparently does well with long-term relationships.)

As you know, My Kid has a girlfriend, whom I call Spice Girl. And she has a best friend, the un-boyfriended Emily. Big Daddy has noted to me that he feels sorry for Emily b/c she's always the third-wheel with the two of them.

Emily is Me.

I was the third wheel of the Lily-Mitch couple for like two years. I didn't get my first boyfriend until I was almost 16 so I lived vicariously through Lily and tried to learn everything I could about boys and kissing and all those other important teen-age issues.

Our sophomore year, I didn't see so much of Mitch. He was still in 9th grade at the junior high (he was the same age as us, but a year behind in school. Late birthday or whatever). My sophomore year was actually the most unhappy of my high school years. For personal reasons at home, but also I was really, really unhappy in high school band. I was third-chair clarinet and the first and second chair girls (a junior and a senior) were really mean to me. I wasn't anywhere near as good a player as they were and they would sit there and talk bad about me like I couldn't hear them. We took a band trip to Disney World which was fun but I was too chicken to ride any good rides like Space Mountain so Lily and I didn't really hang out together on that trip.

Junior year I dropped band and, while Lily and I were still friends, we just didn't see that much of each other. She was hanging with the band crowd which included Mitch and I was hooked up with the choir crowd. I think we had just one class together (English).

Sometime during his Sophomore year, Mitch really came in to his own. He was the first surfer-guy in a high school whose cliques were as simply defined as jocks, preppies, stoners and the stirrings of just a few punks. (Or maybe he was a skater-boy. IDK. It was 1983 so I'm going with surfer.) He grew his bangs out long and bleached them blond. He wore some Sex Wax t-shirt to class. Once during a choir performance in the gym, I was standing next to Suzanne (the most popular girl in my class), looking out over the student body, when she said to me, "Mitch is so hot. I wish that Lily would get her claws out of him."

While Lily had also come out of her shell as she made friends and found her place in high school, she maintained her conservative, preppy image. She began to grow weary of his "weirdness" and they broke up sometime during our junior year. Later that summer of '83, Lily's dad was transferred to Florida and we've not lived in the same state since. I can't even think when the last time I might have talked to Mitch was.

But I do love finding out where people are now and what they're doing. And yesterday, someone from home sent me this link. Which has me wondering why everyone from high school looks to have grown up except me. And Lily. Who also still looks 25.