I graduated high school in 1994. 1994!! That's way too many years that make me an adult, too many years of mistakes, too many years of not looking like the kids in the high school I teach despite feeling like I look exactly like them, too many jobs, too many moves, too many people who came in and out of my life. So much has changed in those years that I really don't even want to remember. One thing - a particular friendship that started back in high school all those years ago I couldn't forget even if I tried. If I had to name just one person who had the most influence on my life hands down it would be Kimberly. Although our friendship changed along the way and for about 20 years we completely fell out of each other's lives, last summer we reconnected. It's a pretty amazing feeling when you get flooded with all the feelings and emotions you always had for a person and realize they are still there after 20 years! 

This "reunion" too, would not have happened without Kimberly. Just like at this event, even back in high school these people were in my life only because she was. She unapologetically dragged me - a shy, awkward kid who barely spoke English - into her circles whether at church or The Thespians at school. I had friends because I had her. Michael-Timothy, Stephen, even Jeff - were  Kim's circle that just like that became my world. 25 years later that world became much wider as spouses and kids and fur-babies crowded the halls of Stephen's home. Although very little about  us resembles us in high school, our love for each other, as evident in the photographs, remains exactly the same. 

I think I will come back to this blog and instead of just leaving things here with this "reunion", I will make this blog a dedication of sorts to my high school best friend by going down the memory lane and documenting a few events and reasons that made her so influential and irreplaceable to me.

Disclaimer: For a change, about 99% of photos in this blog were not taken by me. They are here curtesy of our wonderful high school friend, Stephen. He photographed (unfortunately extremely accurately). lol I edited. As you can see from the pictures, we were not exactly in the state for stellar photography. I'd argue, however, that under the circumstances, we did a pretty awesome job accurately documenting our "reunion" and the love we have for each other.