Lou and I recently watched the 1997 “classic” high school reunion movie, Grosse Pointe Blank, starring John Cusack and Minnie Driver.
It’s one of those movies from “my era” — not Lou’s — and for me, every song featured in this movie soundtrack has a direct connection to my teenage memories. When the song Mirror in the Bathroom or Under Pressure or Blister in the Sun came on in the film, I experienced an instant kind of nostalgia that made me smile — not because high school was a particularly great time for me or anything, but because I can specifically remember wearing out one of my many “mixed tapes” with songs like these on them in the exceptionally awesome silver ghetto blaster that I got for Christmas back in 1985.
But this movie was fun for me to watch, too! I do, however, suspect it was a bit less “fun” for Lou… (But Lou is such a good sport about watching all kinds of movies with me!)
[Just a Weird Aside: While my sister’s husband is also a “good sport,” I don’t think he would’ve been too excited to watch Grosse Pointe Blank with my sister as I know that, at one time at least, he had a very strong aversion to the actress, Minnie Driver. I found this out more than 18-years ago when I was staying with my sister after she had her first baby, and Minnie was on the cover of People magazine. My brother-in-law expressed his dislike for this particular actress, which prompted me to cut out all of the little pictures of Minnie in the magazine, and then hide them in my brother-in-law’s books (to give him a super fun bookmark). I also taped what I thought was an especially stunning cut-out of Minnie inside the “mirror in the bathroom” where my brother-in-law kept his toothbrush — which I think might’ve stayed there awhile just because it was so odd…]
Anyway.
Early in the movie, “Martin Blank” (John Cusack) is on the phone with his assistant “Marcella” (Joan Cusack) and she’s reading him the invitation to Grosse Pointe High’s 10-year-reunion as Martin is preparing to “off” someone as a part of his job as a professional hit man. There’s such a combination of things going on in my head as I watch this scene. For starters, I like how John and his sister interact in their roles in this film, and, I’ve always loved Joan’s quirky line delivery. So when Marcella is reading the reunion letter, it’s so spot on with how dorky those invitations usually sound!
Then, as I watched Martin get the scope just right on his assassin’s rifle, and Marcella continued to read from the invitation with various projected highlights of what “the class of 1986 has been up to for the past ten years,” it made me cringe-laugh. Because showing up to your class reunion and telling your high school friends “what you’ve been up to” is killing people for money would be kind of awesome — in a super dark way, of course — especially if Martin Blank went to my high school!
But watching Gross Pointe Blank made me wonder if other people worry about hooking up with the people who lived through your most painfully awkward years, too, only to discover that your life isn’t as interesting as their lives turned out to be. That type of worry makes going to your reunion kind of risky, in a way — but also really silly to worry about. However, there can be so many unrequited feelings that live in a person’s high school memories, and everything about “coming of age” has an intensity to it that no other season of life seems to have…
So that worry might be silly, but it’s certainly understandable.
I guess I’m mostly at peace with my past — posting my memoir on this blog is sort of helping me find peace, I suppose. But I’m sure I could’ve never pictured my life the way it really is back when I was braiding my super straight damp hair into 20-or-so mini-braids at night to “kink it out” for school the next day. And when I was in my bedroom, creating my latest mixed tape by using my ghetto blaster’s double-cassette-deck to copy a copy of one of my sister’s mixed tapes to create a “totally new” — albeit slightly garbled — music experience, I probably would’ve never forecasted anything about the life I have now.
But that’s what’s so amazing to me about life — especially now that I’ve started to learn to surrender into it!
Please permit me to invoke the “royal you” again here: You can’t possibly know ahead of time what will happen — even if you think you can, and even if you’ve somehow managed to plan out every step you take with the utmost discipline and care. And, if by chance, you’re life does turn out exactly how you predicted it would, you could never know in advance how it will feel to live the life you thought you wanted until you are actually living it! So all you can really do is let go and live your life as it comes…
I dare you to think about that head-scratcher for a minute or two!
Obviously, I have been…
One of my favorite people from high school — Josh “Squash” Renick — is helping to organize a multi-class reunion later this summer that I do wish I could attend. I graduated from a Christian high school called Westminster Academy in Ft. Lauderdale — which is about as far away from where I live now as you can get! But since the reunion involves many graduating classes — not just mine or my sisters— my sister and I really did talk about going! But it turns out, neither of us can make it, so the party will have to go on without an appearance from the Bentley Sisters.
Darn…
But as you can likely gather, I’m feeling a little nostalgic, so I put a picture in the header of this post that I’m fairly sure Josh tagged me in on Facebook not too long ago. The picture must have been taken at some kind of Cross Country team gathering — because, in high school, Cross Country was my life! When I saw this picture for the first time in three decades, I couldn’t believe how young I look! And I specifically remember that sleeveless mock-turtleneck shirt I have on because it was my sisters, and I always liked to borrow her clothes!
The picture brought back a lot of memories, and I recognize everyone in the picture except for two guys. The guy doing bunny ears behind my boyfriend, Mike’s, head, and the guy seated next to me on the sofa who seems to be looking into the lap of Jeff Carlson, “the hot guy” (as he was known) with his legs spread open on the armrest. I’m positive I had to know both of these mystery guys, but my facial recognition system is failing me.
Maybe those two guys will be at the reunion?
Which would mean I’ll miss my chance to meet them again…
Shoot!
Anyway. I do hope everyone who goes to the “Crashing of the WA Class of ’89 Reunion” has the best time and shows up with a lot of joy and perspective to share with others about their lives. However, I also not-so-secretly hope that there’s some sleeper person who graduated from our high school—perhaps one of the two dudes I don’t recognize in that Cross Country pic? — who turns out to be something truly shocking — like a bungee cord tester who lives Down Under now, or perhaps the inventor of Post It’s — oops. That’s already been done.
Or what about our school’s version of a “Christian Martin Blank” who uses his Evangelism Explosion skills to lead his targets to the Lord before he offs them! Can you imagine? His approach might go something like this:
Since you’re going to die today “in an accident,” do you know for sure you’ll go to heaven?
