Quintessential Woman’s Checklist: Preparing for your Class Reunion

It can’t be. Not yet. It’s impossible. You’ve heard others discussing it and wondered how you’d react when it was your turn. You thought you’d be prepared. You thought you’d be laughing all the way there. Wild horses wouldn’t keep you away! Now, the invitation sits soberly in your palm, glued in place by sweat. Actually, everything touching your body at this moment is glued in place by sweat, including at least one child. Six months in advance: * Vow to lose 100 pounds * Purchase gym membership and make appointment with personal trainer * Subscribe to several hairstyle magazines and start planning a new look * Plan an extensive career change to at least double your annual income * Take a serious look at your spouse and decide if you have time to overhaul or just toss to the curb * Commence with Googling all of your former friends and classmates with an eye to finding out how many are more successful, more talented or better looking at this age – at the very least, try to find some gossip that will make them seem less successful, less talented or uglier than you Five months in advance: * After throwing your scale through the bathroom window upon finding that you’ve actually gained 10 pounds, resolve to lose 80 pounds * Stop canceling the appointment with the personal trainer and actually show up * Tell yourself that you have enough time to grow out your bangs and add six inches of length to the back of your hair * After spending the past month asking every person you know what they do for a living and whether or not they can “get you in, too”, start submitting your resume to job sites * Suggest that your hubby invest in one of those handy-dandy combination nose and ear hair trimmers and reconsider his attachment to his back hair * Commence with emailing all of your former friends and classmates for whom you have addresses and ask THEM for gossip that will make other people seem less successful, less talented or uglier than you Four months in advance: * Yell at your husband for losing 16 pounds in the same time period where you’ve now gained 20. Resolve to lose 60 pounds and call your doctor about blood tests to see if you have a thyroid condition. * After being embarrassed at showing up for your first meeting with your personal trainer dressed in your stretched out maternity sweatpants (and promptly rolling your cellulite straight back to the parking lot), shop for some serious work out gear and call the trainer to apologize and beg for another appointment * Revel in the fact that your bangs are now hanging in your eyes and your roots are about an inch wide on either side of your part. Ignore the fact that your husband won’t walk beside you in public * Having not received the windfall of expected replies to your resume, start reading the internal job postings at work. Also, scope out the most annoying person in your office, with a higher position than yours, and begin helpfully pointing out all of their mistakes to senior management * Pointedly tell the hubby that his glasses “do nothing for his face” and suggest he get on the waiting list for laser surgery. If he has the nerve to balk at this procedure, insist on colored contacts * Upon finding out that some of your former friends and classmates ARE more successful, more talented and more attractive than you, march right out for some serious “Ben & Jerry’s” therapy. Two months in advance: * Make rude gagging noises when your husband, now 30 pounds slimmer and significantly smoother, checks his appearance in the mirror before leaving the house. Ensure that the scale hits him in the ass before he reaches the car. It never works when you stand on it anyway. The needle must be broken. Resolve to lose the 25 pounds you’ve gained and get back to your “starting” weight * Start screening calls from your personal trainer who just has NO appreciation for how busy you are and how hard it is for you to get to the gym * Ignore the fact that your hair is now striped… horizontally… salt and pepper on the top and leftover "cayenne pepper" on the bottom. Spicyyyyyy! Note that your husband has taken to doing all errands that require leaving the house – and bitch that it must be so that he can show off his new “figure” * Send handwritten letters of apology to all members of senior management and promise that you will never again engage in harassment of a co-worker. Graciously accept your demotion and start calculating how to prevent your husband from discovering your pay cut * Begin leaving helpful post-it notes around the house as reminders to hubby that “No one your age should be wearing a thong!” and “No matter how much weight you lose, you’re still older than me and losing your hair!” * Obsessively read and re-read the accomplishments of your former friends and classmates – from their CEO positions to their strolls down fashion’s famous catwalks – and decide that you must have hated them in high school so it makes sense to just keep hating them now. Two weeks in advance: * Shop for an outfit that will be “slimming” and conceal the fact that, in spite of your devoted efforts, you now weigh exactly the same as what you did six months ago… and six months before that and six months before that * Leave a nasty message for your former personal trainer, stating “Yes, as a matter of fact, I AM happy being a quitter” and politely inquire how it feels to be replaced by an exercise bike * Make an appointment with your same old hairdresser, for your same old haircut that you’ve loved and worn for the last ten years * Finally admit to your husband that you really DON’T thrive on mac and cheese and hotdogs and, no, they aren’t part of a revolutionary new diet plan you just had to try. You explain your cut in pay and stand incredulous, hands on your hips, while he laughs himself silly over your demotion * Decide that your husband is no longer welcome at the class reunion because you have no intention of finding him in the girls’ locker room, with Miss Former Head Cheerleader, hearing him screech “Gimme a B!” … “Gimme a J!” * Realize that, in the past six weeks, you’ve gotten fed up looking at every single person you pass on the street to assess how successful, talented or attractive they are…and you’ve lost your former enthusiasm for gossip. The night before: Get out your old yearbook. Read through each message… every “have a nice summer”… every “wish we’d gotten to know each other better” and finally come to the realization that: it doesn’t matter what you weigh, how fit (or unfit!) you are, what your hair looks like or how much money you earn. You’re going to spend the next day waiting to get ready, waiting to walk through those school doors for possibly the first time in a decade or several, with the person who means the most to you now on your arm. Then you’re going to introduce that person to those who meant the most to you then… and wonder why on earth you waited so long.