Could Van Dwellers learn from this ?

[LeeRevell]

My senior year in high school was decidedly "odd".  I had finished all graduation requirements in my junior year but did not graduate then.  My senior year was spent taking an aviation mechanics course via the local Vo-tech school, only setting foot on HS grounds to register and then to get the yearbook picture taken.  I got my diploma in the mail.  That interest I aviation resulted in my first hitch, in the USAF.

 

[Jana]

How would an Emergency Room doctor afford an estate? He must have married rich.

 

[akrvbob]

Here is the key:

What other people think of me is their problem and reflects on their mental and emotional well-being, it has almost nothing to do with me.

What I think about myself is all-important!!

1) Can I be honest with myself about who I am?
2) Can I face and accept all that's good and all that's not-so-good about me with genuine truth?
3) Can I live alone in my skin with my own thoughts and feelings without fear of them or fear of what others think?

I just watched the movie "Wild" with Reese Witherspoon and there is a scene where her mother finds out she has terminal cancer and she says to Reese's character:

"I was never me; I was a wife, I was a mother, but I was never me."

That leads Reese's character to walk the Pacific Crest Trail. At the end, unlike her mother, she knows who "me" is, and likes her, and doesn't give a flying EFF what anyone else thinks about her.

Vandwelling did that for me. And I believe it can do it for anyone who is willing.
Bob

 

[sephson]

I quite enjoy going to high school reunions. I find it great fun interacting with the people I knew growing up, with a number of years of distance between us and without all the teenage, high school drama. Most of my childhood classmates have found careers that earn them a lot more money than I make, but I think I have the happier life in spite of that.

I had my twenty year just a couple of years ago. One of the most striking, yet trivial things I noticed was that I am, at least among those who attend the reunions, apparently the only member of my graduating class who is balding and has some grey in the hair. Does this mean that I'm aging faster than my classmates, or am I just the only one who doesn't care about looking older and therefore I do nothing to hide the signs? No hair die or rug for me.

 

[LeeRevell]

One of the biggest problems with reunions is seeing the hot chicks you had a crush on now old and fat, with angry unappreciative kids.  And the guys who were the football heroes now fat and balding.  Of course I am old and fat too, so it all works out.   

But I still have a thick head of (greying) hair......   Thank Goodness I inherited it from my Mom's side and not Dad's, or I'd have been bald twenty years ago.   

 

[Zeke]

I never looked into attending any school reunion, not really my thing. But still, I can see the appeal. This letter to Dear Abby is painfully sad to read. It's possible to imagine some sort of context where the doctor's actions are not contemptible, but the forwarded emails mocking his attempts to attend? What the hell?

 

[LeeRevell]

Simple intolerance of those 'different'.  Some may also say a sad lack of compassion.

 

[thatchickinpa]

I wonder where this guy went to hs. My hs reunion was held just a few weeks ago. It was arranged on FB, and it appeared every effort was made to ensure everyone was extended an invitation.

My family had moved around quite a bit when I was a kid (non-military). Although I went to eight different public schools, I did spend the last three years at the school I graduated from. I definitely wasn't one of the kool kids and didn't like high school, but I did like the area.

It's funny how I viewed myself versus how others viewed me. I was shy and very quiet, kind of just wanted to blend in the background and get to graduation unscathed. On a few occassions in the years since, I talked to former classmates and several of them told me how stuck up I was in hs! Haha ... I suppose that was their interpretation of shy and quiet

I never want to relive those years, but I do like to hear how my classmates lives have unfolded. I haven't attended any of my reunions, but I bump into a classmate every now and then. Inevitably they embarked on a typical middle class life - basically boring to me, although so far I'm no better But hopefully they are happy with the roads they have chosen.

 

[LeeRevell]

I am of the age now where I am seeing some old classmates have died off.  Dad and Mom had lived with this for years, now it's my turn.  Some have prospered, some have not.  It's a microcosm of life.  Ran into a few over the years where I worked.  One gal who was a stone fox in HS and we guys all had a crush on, got FAT......    Another chubby girl, many years later, looked GOOD!!  Some hunky guys got paunchy.  Some wimps filled out.  I was always very tall, so I 'grew out' rather than grew 'up'.  So far I am one of very few who went into the military.
Never have run into any old teachers.  Most are likely passed away now.
One math teacher (a woman) had a cute VW Westfalia campervan she used as her daily driver.

 

[ryegal]

I have had exactly the opposite experience.Was always a poor boy,always working on the farm while other kids were doing the social things.Never in with the in crowd or the better off kids.I left school at age 16 and went to work,before joining the Navy at 17.Some way and for some reason,the people who do the class re-union have always managed to find me and send me an invitation.I finally went 2 years ago and couldn't have been treated any nicer.The only problem was,boy those people sure have got old.

LoL  hey Bob I can"t understand why when I look in the mirror my mothers there ...and shes older. LOL