Mom in the Mirror

Reuniting with my younger self

I just received an invitation to my high school reunion. My first thought is: It must be a mistake. I'm not old enough for 20 years to have passed since I graduated. Then I realize, yes, I am.

But reunions are for my parents -- for fat, balding, gray people who are done, who are ready to declare, "This is what I've made of myself." I'm not ready for my 15 minutes of fame. I'm still a work in progress.

The past is a series of entries and exits, and I'm still walking through rooms I could only peek into back then.

I'm not ready to close the door on the lives I haven't lived. And that's who my former classmates are to me: the urban jungle girl, the suburban housewife, the novelist, the actor.

I don't have any regrets about my life, but I don't want to invite any to dinner, either. I don't want to reminisce about all of the turns my life has taken, all of the choices I have made. And isn't nostalgia a sort of wistful regret? "If only things were still like that ... "

The truth is, those weren't such good ole days for me.

In high school, I was discovering my dad's mortality -- he had quadruple bypass surgery the summer after my freshman year. I was discovering my own vulnerability -- I had emergency surgery for a ruptured spleen just before my sweet 16 and was literally left speechless for days. And I was discovering how fragile our relationship was. Just like my mother predicted when I decided to live in my father's custody, a woman was replacing me in his heart. By the middle of my sophomore year, he was remarried and I was scared.

I don't want to feel that way again. I don't want to feel too smart to be happy, too intense to get close to anyone, uncool, ugly, like I don't belong.

I was managing editor of the school newspaper, cast in every musical, on so many committees my picture is on practically every page of that section in the yearbook, and yet I felt like an imposter, especially with my friends.

They were popular and pretty, with suitors to spare. They could afford to be exclusionary, snobby. I never knew what they saw in me. I thought I was the token Jew, the intellectual, a social charity case. Now I realize they liked me for all the reasons I hated myself.

Yes, we were different, and those fault lines have since widened. But I don't want to take up residence in their shoes now any more than I did then, and I'm sure the feeling's mutual.

I'm afraid of meeting someone far more intimidating at this reunion: my younger self. What if she doesn't recognize me? What if we don't like or approve of one other?

Whether or not I travel several hundred miles this October to drink beer and play soccer with my fellow alumnae, there's no avoiding this assignation with myself. Someday, who I was and who I am will meet, and I'll have no peace until they come to terms.

I received my high school diploma on my 18th birthday. Today, I am a mother, wife, daughter, writer, editor, and friend. I belong with my family, I love my work, and I have tremendous faith in the future. But I will truly graduate into adulthood only when I can look my past in the eye and see, reflected, self-respect.

This LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.

An affair to forgive?

My husband didn't cheat on me while he was traveling for business last week. Or last month, or last year. In fact, he hasn't been unfaithful anytime during our nearly 8-year marriage or 11-year relationship. While some might find this remarkable, I don't. What's amazing to me is this: I believe our marriage would survive his betrayal.

I was thinking about this recently when Hillary Clinton was promoting her book and people once again questioned her decision to stay with her husband. How could she do it? How could she stand it? How could they go on?

I understand her choice. I even respect and admire it. Because once, I was forgiven.

It was nine years ago. Gary and I had bought our first home together -- though we weren't yet married -- and we quickly became cash-strapped. I felt trapped in a stressful job, while he was trying to build a freelance career. I was in my late 20s and already tired, scared, resentful.

Gary believes I was vulnerable, ripe for the picking by an opportunist with no respect for others. I've never been quite that willing to blame someone else for the choices I made, but I'll let you be the judge.

I worked with a younger man who reminded me that life can be fun, carefree even. He listened when I needed to talk. He held me when I needed to cry. When Gary was remote and unavailable, this co-worker was only too willing to be there for me.

I enjoyed the lightness, the flirtation, the attention. I did not enjoy the pain it caused Gary. But out of respect for him, I was honest about the fact that I thought I might be falling in love with someone else.

And Gary's response, without a doubt, turned that time into the most pivotal point in our relationship. He vowed to be a friend to me and to move our relationship forward, in whatever form it took. I quickly saw what I was risking and I have never forgotten, nor will I, how committed he was to us. Every day I am grateful for that gift, for his leap of faith, for his lesson of love. Without it, our marriage would not exist, nor would our son.

I don't mean to suggest that everyone should have affairs or forgive them. I just think that it's possible for relationships to be bigger than what happened one night, or even one summer.

Many disagree with me. I know because I heard their reactions to the choices Hillary Clinton made, choices which turned her into a prism for our fears about our own marriages.

No one wants to be left, physically or emotionally. And betrayal is an exit. But where's the door?

Do you walk through it when you look forward to seeing someone a little too much? When you share too many lunches? Too many confidences?

I have not touched another man since Gary and I married, nor will I. But I have felt, at times, that my closeness to others bordered on betrayal. And while I have never worried that he would be unfaithful, I have felt threatened by how intimate some of Gary's friendships are.

Why does he spend late nights on the phone with a friend or go out for a game of pool and to drink beer when he could be with us? Why does one of his favorite clients fly him back to North Carolina to work? Why can't I just be happy that he has such wonderful people in his life?

I know that none of these other relationships affect anything important between us. And if I forget, our wedding bands remind me. They are engraved with this vow (written by E.E. Cummings): "I carry your heart with me."

Long ago, I entrusted my heart to Gary, and I am incredibly fortunate that he was willing to give me a second chance with his.

This LifeFiles column originally appeared on about 70 TV station websites managed by Internet Broadcasting Systems.