I had a weird ass dream. I was sitting outside a house I spent a lot of time at as a kid when a middle school friend I hadn't seen or spoken to in at least twenty years approached me. It was a beautiful day and people were outside nearly every house enjoying the weather. This person was upset because she thought I had intentionally cut off contact with her. We got to talking and then we were in a hotel of some sort at a party (but a far more uppity one than I'd ever attend). The were large floor to ceiling windows at this place and when we looked out, we could see spaceships descending on top of buildings in anticipation of blowing them up. Everybody ran and this random, dressed to the nines lady hurried a small group of us into a "shelter" down some stairs. The friend and I were standing just at the top of the stairs trying to pick out people we knew to go into the shelter. I saw a couple of family members and a few of my closest friends, but was concerned about someone I didn't see. So we all go into the shelter and wait, hearing the chaos raining down above. Most people were laying on the floor, on their sides with their hands up covering their heads, but I was (of course) sitting there casually with my knees bent and my hands behind me like I was on a damn beach, wondering why this shelter wasn't even kinda full. I also wondered why the woman who had lead us into it seemed more distressed than anyone else. Suddenly, water began streaming into the room from the direction where we'd come in. We realized there was no door on the shelter and everyone began to panic and run away. My companion and I ran through several darkened hallways and ended up running smack into a hotel attendant we'd seen at the party. As we stood there trying to piece together how our "shelter" had been on the same main floor of the hotel where the party had been, we overheard the dressed to the nines lady saying she'd never intended to save lives - she just wanted us to be "not as scared" about dying. Somehow, the dream redirected to the friend and I being in a grocery store, seemingly oblivious to what we'd just gone through. She picked up a bunch of groceries and we headed for the checkout. During this stroll, she said she was interested in me as a potential romantic partner, and I said there was something we should talk about if that was the case. We got back to her room, that was small and dark and looked like a dorm room, and fell onto the bed and kissed. Again, I reiterated there was something she needed to know (regarding my health, I believe), but we kissed again. Then I woke up.
My first thought upon waking up was that I really just should've never binge watched, "The X-Files". My second thought was, "Huh...I wonder what she's up to these days" about the friend. My third thought was that I needed to share the details of this weird ass dream with somebody, so I rattled it all off to Y. Her first thought was that she needs to monitor what I watch before bed. Her second thought was to find this person on Facebook and answer my question. Y remains Facebook friendly with a fair amount of people from our high school days, whereas I choose to maintain my distance from those days. I have a general idea of what a lot of them are up to, but I don't feel the need to friend them on Facebook and keep them updated on my own life. High school was meh for me and I consciously chose who I wanted to remain tight with and who I do without. Ironically, most of the friend requests I've gotten from old high school acquaintances have come from folks who weren't very nice to me back then. But Q is not one of those people. We met during my Catholic school era and while we got along well and had a fair amount in common, we never hung out when we weren't in school. I would go to other friend's houses, but Q and I had more of a school yard kinda friendship and I can't remember why that was. We never spoke during the summer months, but picked up right where we left off every time school was back in session.
Once high school rolled around I was surprised to see that many of my Catholic school peers, who had been confined to those Catholic halls since Kindergarten, also made the jump to the same public high school, which funneled in kids from 4 different middle schools. The upside of this was that Y and I could finally attend the same school after years of being separated by the cruelty of living in different districts. The downside was that many of us seemed to lose friends we'd known forever due to the high school hierarchy. I vaguely remember that sometime during our first week of high school sitting in the lunchroom with a few of my new friends when Q and her new group came around. We said hi to one another, but we didn't speak much after that. In fact, I don't think we ever had a single class together. In my senior year, I managed the girl's volleyball team (I know you're thinking I did this so I could date the ladies, but the real reason behind it was that I needed extracurriculars and Y was the captain of the team and got me the gig), and Q was one of the players. During a practice, she had to step aside to put on a knee brace and she sat down next to me and another player (who I didn't like, but Q was friendly with). The other chick said something about me and Q chimed in and corrected them and I remember thinking it was a weird fact for her to remember years after we'd last had an actual conversation. The whole dynamic was weird. We seemed to still like each other, but just weren't friends. Maybe that's because we didn't have any classes together, maybe it's because Q found her clique and that's who she stuck with (Y would like me to point out that she thinks Q avoided me because I was a bad influence and her mom worked at the school and sized up all her friends, but that's absurd. I didn't become a bad influence until college). The last time I saw Q was at graduation where we waved at one another. She hadn't crossed my mind since, until the apocalyptic grocery dream.
As it turned out, Q had also returned to our old stomping grounds to spend Easter with her family. Y, Q and I all went to dinner on Friday night and it was actually really nifty. I'd completely lost some of the stuff Q and I used to do in middle school where we were idiots. I was reminded that we initially bonded over being grammar nerds and goofballs. All three of us marveled at how we'll be 35 by year's end. None of us have ever attended a high school reunion. Y wanted to go, but life intervened, while Q and I both decided we wanted to stay away from our former classmates. I was surprised to find out she hasn't spoken to anyone she was BFF's with since a few months after graduation. She went to college, majored in English to make her education-centric parents happy and then took off for L.A. to work in the movies. We still have a lot in common, actually. And it was nice to catch up. I was not a fan of my high school years, but this was a nice little reminder that it wasn't all bad.
