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Finally the day of the din­ner, I demanded that the adult inside to stand up and act, well…like an adult! I’m a wife and a mother of 2 won­der­ful boys. I have been suc­cess­ful in busi­ness and in love. I have learned (am learn­ing) grace, for­give­ness and faith­ful­ness. I am loud and laugh louder. And peo­ple like me despite that!

This past week­end J and I went out with eight other cou­ples. We ate at a classy restau­rant that spe­cial­izes in fon­due. The atmos­phere was rich and elec­tri­fy­ing. The con­ver­sa­tion, food and drinks flowed freely…thankfully. I don’t think I slept the two nights lead­ing up to the din­ner. I hadn’t seen these other cou­ples in years. There had been a 13 year gap with one of the cou­ples. The sad thing is other than two of the cou­ples, the rest of us all live in the same town. And we’re family.

All cousins and their spouses got together for the first time since the early 90’s. And that was because of weddings.

The mind is an amaz­ing thing. As soon as my brother told me there was going to be a get together of the cousins, I turned into an awk­ward, bell-bottom wear­ing 3rd grader. I prac­ti­cally peed myself from the jolt of fear that went up my spine.

“Dear God, these peo­ple are from my past.”

I’m a happy, func­tion­ing woman because my past is exactly that…my past. These “peo­ple” know every sin­gle secret or story of my child­hood. With as fast as my heart beat over the course of a few days, you would think I exhausted pounds off by the dou­ble dig­its, but instead I panic-ate my lit­tle heart out.  Nii­i­i­i­ice. Noth­ing like gain­ing 10 lbs just before see­ing peo­ple who haven’t seen you since you weighed 115.

Finally the day of the din­ner, I demanded that the adult inside me to stand up and act, well…like an adult! I’m a wife and a mother of 2 won­der­ful boys. I have been suc­cess­ful in busi­ness and in love. I have learned am learn­ing grace, for­give­ness and faith­ful­ness. I am loud and laugh louder. And peo­ple like me despite that!

Of course, all that stress eat­ing wasn’t worth it. We had a won­der­ful time and we all laughed about past and new sto­ries. We got together again Sun­day morn­ing to watch one of my cousins and his wife ded­i­cate their newly adopted daugh­ter. They have waited YEARS for this time and it was incred­i­ble watch­ing them take this new step in their lives.

We even talked about, those of us in town, get­ting together a lit­tle more often. One of the cousins has boys the same age as Old­man and Grem­lin so the boys would love it.

As much as it pan­ics me that they know my past, it’s also reas­sur­ing that they know my past.

…as long as I keep remind­ing myself that I’m not 8 years old!