Reunion ruminations

I've been thinking back to my 10 year high school reunion that was held about a month ago.

I went thinking "oh, I'll socialize and have a great time"

But the reality was that I sat with one friend in the back of the room and talked very little to anyone except her. She and her husband left early, and I followed suit.

Why?

Well first of all, I was exhausted due to having a really bad night the night before where I slept only a few hours. You'd think with a 4 month old baby at the time that I'd be used to it, but I'm really not. She typically sleeps all night and has since she was a month old or so.

Also, I was not exactly a social butterfly in high school. I kept to myself a fair amount (besides participating in every band class there was), wore all black a lot, sat in the back of the class and generally personified the typical socially awkward teenager. I thought when I saw people all that would drop away and I could be myself. Instead as I remembered people it just made me draw back into my shell and I couldn't imagine joining into the festivities more than to talk to a few people that broke away from the group and came to talk to me. So I was just the same outcast loser as I was in high school 10 years later at the reunion.

I'd say the weekend was a wash and a waste of money and time.... but my dad is still in the hospital from the surgery he had the day after I left. He had a bad reaction to.... something, probably the anesthesia and his mild dementia has become severe.

This weekend he became so agitated that he started cursing and pretty much attacked some people at the rehabilitation center he has been staying at. He has talked with a severe slur since the operation, cusses now (he has always hated cussing enough to tell me that he didn't approve of my mom saying sh*t, now he is calling people "bitch" left and right) He got so out of hand that it took multiple policemen, paramedics and three shots of Haldol to get him to the hospital. Now my mom isn't sure if he'll ever get to go home.

I knew something could go wrong and braced myself for the fact he might die from the surgery- it didn't occur to me that anything worse could happen. Death is indeed bad, but if he never recovers from this dementia I think that could be worse.

At least Lorelei got to meet him once before all this. Not that she will remember it. And luckily, she didn't get to witness my reunion freeze-up either.