By Cindy Modlin Adams
This week we welcome a Guest Blogger, Cindy Modlin Adams. Dame Cindy is a nurse practitioner who works in her community theater as a produce. She loves to sing, walk, and rescue Golden Retrievers. She developed the following checklist just before attending her first high school reunion at age 54. I think we can all resonate with her tremendous honesty and humor.
12 Months Before
- Restrict calories
- Schedule more workouts
- Start using wrinkle cream
9 Months Before
- Worry that weight isn’t coming off fast enough
- Notice that the wrinkles aren’t disappearing
3 Months Before
- Consider changing your mind about attending, or decide to finally accept yourself and GROW UP (whatever THAT is)
- Start sharing high school stories with your husband
1 Month Before
- Read yearbooks to remember names and faces
- Gather pictures and news clippings
- Read all hand-written notes on back of pictures; laugh and cry
- Make your husband listen to more stories
- Order teeth-whitening solution from dentist
- Schedule hair appointment
- Schedule manicure for a few days before the reunion
2 Weeks Before
- Spend some time in the sun
- Commit to the long-term plan of cutting your hair short and highlighting despite the upcoming reunion
- Meet with just turned 100-year-old friend for high school reunion advice – share Oreos and realize life is too short to worry about weight and acne scars that still show — listen to her advice that reunions can be fun AND scary and that hair color is a good idea even though she absolutely NEVER colored hers
2 Days Before
- Whiten teeth one last time
- Pluck eyebrows
- Pluck chin hairs
- Trim nose hairs
1 Day Before
- Remember even if you don’t have all your mental or physical faculties, you still have the essence of your youth within you
- Don’t eat beans or any other gas-producing vegetables
Day of Reunion
- Remember that the risk of shared memories today may be the joy of tomorrow
- Don’t forget to wear your uplifting padded bra and spandex thigh shapers
- Recheck for chin and nose hairs
- Change your mind about eating beans or gas-producing vegetables (after all, you were the one who handed out the Fart Quiz to your Math and English teachers)
- Embrace your friends who have taken the same journey and smile
- Offer to light a match
