You'll Pay Me to Go?!

“Really, Shelley?” I halfheartedly tried to tone down my disbelief. “You’re going to bribe me?” I was wondering at my friend’s sanity. She was seriously waving a hundred-dollar bill at me. We’d known each other for aeons, but this was pushing my boundaries—well, maybe this was more like pushing my fear out into the open.

“Does this make me look fat?” I asked Shelley, as I turned again, trying to see my backside. Who was I kidding? Was I planning and not just contemplating going? The more I stared at myself in the mirror, the more convinced I was that I had lost all sense of reality. There was no way I could go. Nothing fit properly and nothing looked good on me either. I mean really, what was the point anyway.

“Because you’re my best friend and you know I can’t do this without you.” I wrenched my depressing thoughts from their downward spiral and inspected Shelley. I could see that she was completely serious. With a sigh, I shrugged my shoulders, trying to dislodge the wet, wool cape of weighty thoughts.

“I know, I know. I’m just struggling with how things are now compared to back then, you know?” I worked at sounding more upbeat and interested than I was feeling. After all, Shelley was doing her best to change her present and future by taking back control of her life. She was tired of medicating her problems, and I was so proud of her for persistently breaking bad habits one at a time and sticking with doing things in a better, healthier way. I needed to take a page from her book and apply it to my life, too. I was struggling almost as much as she was, and I knew that it wasn’t healthy for me either. What was with my obsession about how I looked? Back in the day I was a rebel that wore fluorescent colors so I could stand out from the crowd and I heartily embraced being my wonderful quirky self.

Feeling lighter than I had in a while, and with renewed interest, I looked around. It was time to go to the attic. “Let’s go upstairs to the attic. Let’s do this right and have a blast at the same time.” I was attempting to soften her up for what I was going to pull on her next. Now I was getting excited. Here’s how I could turn around my desperate situation around and make it into something positive instead, I thought to myself. This is what Shelley’s therapist has been advising her for quite some time.

“Maybe I should pay you because everything you’ve been learning is teaching me new and better habits, too.” I said, only somewhat jokingly. With a renewed sense of purpose, my steps sped up as I walked to the back of the house. Looking up, I tapped the correct spot on the wall to my right, which in turn dropped the extended handle so I could reach and grab it, pulling it down with a hard jerk. We began the short but steep ascent to the attic. In my head I queued the raucous laughter of a gremlin telling me it was going to be spooky up there.

With a snort of laughter, I explained to Shelley, who was looking at me askance, “I heard a gremlin in my head saying, ‘Are you certain you want to go to the attic, little girly?’ And I know it’s ridiculous, but suddenly this whole idea is becoming an adventure now. Is that crazy or what?” I excitedly asked. Not looking for a response and too impatient now that I was looking forward to going, I quickly found the boxes I was looking for. Thankfully, in my obsessive attention to detail I had marked the year on the box so at a glance I knew which clothes were from when. Nothing irritated me more than rifling all the way through an over-packed box NOT to find what I had been looking for. I barked out a laugh as I pulled out a garishly bright sweatshirt and tossed it at Shelley, who had just placed her foot on the solid floor of the attic with a sigh of relief. Poor Shelley, I forgot her fear of heights. And there she went again, showing me how much she had changed in the past year—overcoming her fears one by one.

“No way, Heather. You can’t expect me to go with you dressed like that?” She exclaimed with a look of dawning horror on her face.

“Yes, this is what will make it fun and funny. We will pair this with our wide-leg jeans, too, if we can squeeze into a pair. This is what will make me not go crazy worrying about what I’m wearing and how fat my butt is in everything! Let’s do this right. Let’s look like our dorky selves back in the day. Instead of us trying to impress and compare, let’s do what we did best back then. Let’s stand out as our beautiful, unique selves. Do you remember how we met?” Now I was grinning from ear to ear as the memories bombarded me one after the other.

“Yeah, I remember looking at you across the yard and thinking, this girl is either color blind, or she really doesn’t care; and I was intrigued and curious to find out what your story was.” Now Shelley was looking lighter and happier, too, as she remembered our first meeting.

“That’s right. I was bowled over because you were so forward and brave enough to ask me if I was color blind.” A full belly laugh took over and it was a few moments before I could quiet down long enough to hear my friend’s response.

“Yeah, well back then nothing scared me and I just asked what was on my mind.” Shelley shook her head, disbelieving how easy everything seemed back then.

“Well, I say if we’re going then we’re going in style.” I proclaimed as I grabbed the next neon colored sweatshirt from the late ‘70s box. It was time to face our 25th High School Reunion in style. We were going retro and there was no stopping me now. I couldn’t wait to see what everyone else looked like!