Ten Years or Ten Minutes?

My ten year high school reunion is coming up in four weeks in Winston-Salem, NC and I am really looking forward to the event. A flyer in my email inbox listed the weekend festivities, beginning with tailgating before a home football game on Friday night, the actual reunion in downtown Winston on Satuday night and a brunch on Sunday morning. We haven't decided what events we'll be going to, but I've already been considering the important decisions that have to be made before then: what to wear, how to do my hair, how to lose 8 pounds by August 19, how to properly exfoliate my face to give me that healthy glow, and how to turn my skin from pale to tan. You know, the really important stuff.

And after considering all these extremely imporant decisions to make pre-high school reunion, I began to wonder - after ten years, have I really changed all that much? The past ten years have flown by like it's been ten minutes. Are these the things I'm really worried about...at age 28? Alarmed by this realization, I began to examine my life and daily routine and discovered that though I am ten years removed from high school, I still have frighteningly similiar taste to a 17 year old girl...

I recently became obsessed with the television show Gossip Girl. How do I know this is an obsession as opposed to a mere liking of the show? I "became a fan" of the show on Facebook. Which leads me to my next point...

I'm on Facebook. Sure, there are a TON of people of all ages on Facebook, but wasn't it originally intended as a online social network for students?

The book I am currently reading? Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld. It's the story of a girl from the midwest who goes off to a prep high school in Massachusetts. It's really well written and I'm thoroughly enjoying the story.

I have Miley Cyrus on my iPod...twice. Shut up. I like her songs, especially when I'm out for a run.

Shopping malls excite me. I love to shop. I love looking at clothes and trying them on. I like looking at all the jewelry, the shoes, the handbags and oh yes, the shoes. It's a wonder I hadn't made it up to Mall of America sooner.

Pink is my favorite color. Purple and blue are a close second.

So, some of my tastes aren't as "refined" as I would like them to be. They may even be down right immature. But then I realized, it doesn't matter what other people think of me. These things in my life make me happy; they put a smile on my face. And life is too short to worry about what other people think about you. So maybe I have come a long way since high school. I'm confident in who I am as a person, my life and the choices I have made. It may have felt like ten minutes, but the past ten years have taught me a lifetime of lessons, and that makes me feel a million years removed from high school.