Jaci Dawn

I am coming up on my 50^th high school reunion, which, of course, has made me a tad bit nostalgic. Not that high school was all that wonderful, but it was a far cry from the misery of elementary and middle school – and it was in a small town where folks tend to be more sentimental about those things. Not all folks, but… And I am not even sure why I care.

I only survived high school because of Jay.

We were a month into my freshman year when my father’s employment uprooted our comfortable life in the town where I had suffered through elementary and middle school. My brother was a senior. My sister was in the 6^th grade. I had this one disadvantage to my siblings: I was – and remain – a very shy individual. An introvert. My experience in my younger years made me gun shy of making new friendships. I didn’t trust people. And, of course, I was only focused on what the move was doing to MY life, not my brother’s senior year plans or my sister’s tender age as she entered the world of middle school and all of the baggage of pre-teen pressures. They were on their own.

I was a late developer. At the age of 13, I stood 4’11” and weighed possibly 85#. I looked like a 6^th grader and felt like one in the halls of a strange school with giants all around me.

The kids surrounding me had grown up together like the kids I had just left behind. Cliques (and “pecking orders”) were established. In my old school, I was on the lower echelon of the strata, but I had friends who could protect me. I was now in unfamiliar territory, with no friends to circle the wagons for me. I had to develop a strategy of porcupine quills and I had to fake being an extrovert. I just wanted to curl up in a ball and cry.

Enter Jay. I may remember it wrongly, but it seemed like it was the first day of being in a school that overwhelmed all of my senses, and going into a lunchroom with my sack lunch and no idea where I would sit – or with whom. My brother, ever the extrovert, had already established himself and couldn’t be relied on (he spent his senior year following me down the halls, making fun of the way I walk: “Quack! Quack! I’m a duck!” – loudly).

I stood there, confused and dazed when Jay came over and told me I could sit with her.

We never had any classes together, but for the next three years we met every lunch hour. We never did an overnight thing except once when I stayed at her house on Hallowe’en before her family moved to a homestead out of town and she had to ride the bus. She was never involved in any of the civic or class things I was in. She came to school and went home, period. But she was there for every single lunch period.

We had so much in common: a miserable first 9 years in public school. Bottom rung of the social strata. Same size shoes (we traded shoes every morning in 10^th – 12^th grade, switching them back out when we had to go home). Sense of humor. Sense of loyalty. Introverts. November birthdays. Names that began with the letter “J”.

Most of those years there were three of us: the cowgirl, Tina, Jay, and me. Whenever a new kid showed up at school, we took them in to have lunch with us and ease their introduction into our high school. Most of those moved onto other social engagements, but Jay, Tina, and I… The three musketeers.

Tina talked me into joining the Rodeo Club even though I did not have a horse or any hope in h*** of getting one. We sponsored school dances, the food cart at football games, and the annual junior rodeo. We did fund raisers together. Tina and Jay always were jealous of my friendship and never hesitated to gossip about each other. I stayed as neutral in the middle as I could: Jay was my first, and best, friend. I was not about to turn on that kind of friendship.

I remember one girl we took in when she was new at our high school. She pulled me aside to tell me I could “do so much better than her”, meaning Jay. I could just quit being friends with Jay and be her friend, and we’d be popular. I was truly shocked. WHY would I do that? Whatever I told that girl… she never talked to me again. And I didn’t care: my friendship with Jay was more important.

Why not four years? Well, Jay fell in love. Near the end of our Junior year in high school, she started spending most of her time with a boy. I was invited at lunch, of course, but who wants to be a third wheel? We still switched shoes every day, but we didn’t go to lunch together. I had developed other friendships and had other people I could go to lunch with besides Jay or Tina. I still spent time with Tina because she could go to after-school events and, well, Rodeo Club.

Jay got married a few weeks before we graduated. She went on to be a mother and a wife, and she went where he went. I tried college out and failed at that. I wandered, always falling back on my high school strategy of pretending I was not a true-to-form introvert. I made friends. I moved to Oregon, met a man, got married, became a mom and wife. We lost touch.

There’s a twist to the story, of course: Jay’s husband (and our classmate), Dee. I hadn’t been in favor of the marriage: we were too young. Dee “stole” my best friend from me. I had lots of excuses. I was against anything that led a young girl down the traditional role of wife and mother (I repented when I fell in love). My porcupine quills were out when it came to the love between Jay and Dee. But it was Dee who tracked me down in an age before social media, computers, and cell phones. It was Dee who called me out of the blue and gave me their phone number and address.

We lost touch again. And it was Dee who found me on social media. It was Dee who always found me and tried to get us back together as best friends, and I think I owe Dee as much as I owe Jay for her friendship during the years when I was full of angst and teenage drama.

I know where Jay is these days. She raised sons. We still have a lot in common, but we aren’t very close on social media. I keep in touch with Dee more than Jay, but we never forget each other’s birthdays. I know, for instance, that Jay will not come to our 50^th class reunion (but I messaged them and asked anyway). High school memories are not as sweet for Jay and Dee as they are for me. They grew up in the same small town and endured the same social status for the 12 years they were in school with the same people. I would probably feel that way if I had attended twelve years of school with my elementary and middle school friends. 

Tina died last year. I lost touch with her as well. I only learned of her passing when an email was sent out listing everyone we have lost over the past 50 years and there was her name. My cowgirl friend who liked peanuts in her cokes and twisted my hippie arm into being in the Rodeo Club with her.

I don’t know why I am excited for this class reunion. Maybe to make amends with people I offended when I was still a porcupine. Maybe to see how my other friendships panned out. I did have other friendships. It won’t be the same without the girl whose shoes I wore for three years. Hers were always worn out in just the right places. My feet felt right in her shoes. I have never traded shoes with another living soul. It’s not hygienic.

But Jay’s shoes always fit.