Is it just me, or...???

Life speeds up. Somehow, in the simple course of living, we are automatically shifted from idling on the side of the backroads to cruising down the super highway. I'm going to my ten year reunion in one week. TEN YEARS. Wow. I had no idea I was THIS old. I thought I was younger. I still chime into conversations as if I were not that far removed from my high school years. I have a box of old cassette tapes which include Richard Marx and Paula Abdul. I just packed up my CAP AND GOWN for God's sake!

I remember my first boyfriend. His name was Vick Smith. I was in between ninth and tenth grade, and Vick went to another school. I was SO COOL. Until he tried to kiss me. I'd never kissed a boy before, and I wasn't about to start letting HIS tongue invade the inside of my oral orifice, roaming aimlessly like a two-year-old at an Easter egg hunt. So as he leaned in, eyes closed, expecting to eventually run smack dab into my succulently braced mouth, I'm sure he was quite surprised to find my mouth felt - and smelled - a lot like his rotten sofa seat cushions. I broke up with him, of course.

And my first drink of alcohol. I was fifteen, babysitting with a friend. Her parents had a box of Franzia in the fridge and I swear she only gave me about six ounces, but that six ounces went farther than any six ounces would ever go again. Or am I thinking of inches? Hmm? Anyway, all I remember is the two-year-old blonde boy climbing my back for another yee-haw on the pretend horsie I'd become, and screaming, "You guys ARE, TOO, drunk!"

Back to the inches, then there was my first...oh you guys don't wanna hear that sad, sappy story. In short, it begins with the coveted dozen roses sent to school and a letterman's jacket, and ends with the fateful "day after" break-up. In unison, please: Awwww. Poor Heather.

Enough reminiscing. The bottom line is not too deep. Rather shallow, actually. I am getting older. And it went too fast. And I have to go face all those people on Friday WITHOUT Brad Pitt on my arm, dammit.