20 Years Later: Part 1

It's hard to believe that this summer will be my 20th year class reunion. I am not 100% sure if I am going even though it will be in the town I live in. I did not go to my 10 year reunion because I had been divorced a few years and felt embarrassed about my 'divorced' status. Looking back that probably would not have mattered to anyone because later, I found out that quite a few other classmates were also divorced. I'm sure that at this upcoming reunion, some of my classmates may have different spouses than they had at the 10 year reunion. It is interesting how we think our lives should be when we reach a certain age or milestone in life. Twenty years ago, I believed that I had my future figured out. I would begin cosmetology school in my hometown several weeks after high school graduation. A year later, I would graduate and find work as a hairdresser in this same hometown. Maybe I would get married, but I was not interested in having children. I just wanted to be a career woman. If I did not get married by a certain age (maybe 25), I wanted to venture out to Hollywood and became a celebrity hairstylist. I really did not want to think about how my life would be ten or even twenty years later. Part of my 'plan' turned out the way I thought it should when I graduated from cosmetology school in 1996 and a few months later found a salon job in town. However, I hardly made any money for the seven months I had worked there so I quit. I was not able to find any salon jobs at all, so I tried whatever minimum-wage job I could get. I landed a gig at the local Tastee Freeze but after my two-week probationary period, I was let go because I did not seem to be able to get the hang of working the cash register. I was not fast enough and I felt like my supervisor did not take enough time to train me more efficiently. I continued to apply for more jobs (both minimum wage and salon) in my hometown and still could not find one after three months of unemployment. At the age of 21, I did what I had to do to get any job. I left my hometown for the Phoenix area (I had previously lived there during my younger years and had lots of family there) and within a week of living there, I got a job in a sandwich shop. After getting my Arizona cosmetology license, I found a salon job which I stayed at for eight months before finding a better one. After having lived with my grandparents for awhile, I found a studio apartment and was proud that I could make it on my own financially. Surprisingly, I got married at the age of 23 so my dreams of becoming a Hollywood hairdresser were pretty much over. I had not even thought about them until writing this post. When I got married, I felt like I was now following the blueprint of life properly. By that time, quite a number of my classmates had already married and even had children. I was still not interested in having children. I just wanted to focus on my career, my marriage, and even my education (still did not have a clue what direction I wanted to go in). I thought I had it all and fantasized about my 10 year reunion. I would have somebody and show the guys who made fun of me that I was worthy of having a husband. At the age of 26, I no longer cared about having someone because I got divorced. My marriage was an unhealthy one and I realized that I was much better off being single. It would still be a few more years before my 10 year reunion so I had to work on slimming down (I had probably put on 25 pounds since high school). I thought that by then I would have a date to the reunion. I believed that since somebody wanted me at one time, someone else would want me again.