"There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered." ~ Nelson Mandela

While reading about Ariel´s upcoming class reunion, I started thinking about my time at school. I never attended any reunions so far - I don´t even know if there were any?

I graduated in 1998. I had a great time at high school, I was popular, had tons of friends, was the class representative for 4 years and even the elected representative of all students for 2 years.

But during all the time, I felt I was different. And I wanted something different.

I grew up in a really small town.There wasn´t much going on... I decided pretty early that this town wasn´t the place for me to grow old.



I don´t want to sound mean or anything, but I wanted more in my life than the highlight of the week being saturday, means car wash for the men, and women go grocery shopping and exchange the latest gossip in the parking lot. I know my family was part of that gossip way too often, since we were/are a little different. In a good way. Example: There was a choir from Rwanda at the local church and guess who invited them for dinner? Yep, my mom :o)

I´m glad to be part of an awesome and open minded family. We travelled a lot - my parents showed me there is so much more in life than just the boundaries of the small town. We have friends all over the world! They always let me do things! I can hardly remember them telling me "no!" to something I wanted to try or do!

Take this for a prime example: In 7th grade we had to do an internship at a company of our own choice for 1 week. Sending in our resume and everything. Even at this young age I knew I didnt want to waste this time sitting at the warehouse of a local shop or company. I wanted more!

So I called one of my penpals, whose dad worked for a popular and big TV channel over here. RTL. He said it´s cool, I can come! So that´s what I did! Moved in with my friend and her family for 10 days and went to work with her dad every morning and got bad pretty late at night (;oD overtime at this young age, yep, some things will never change!).
The exciting part about this internship was: it took place 120 miles away from home, means 120 miles away from school. Everybody else was shocked! I was proud though. And it was a great experience!

Since my dad still owns the house I was born, I go there every once in a while. But I really don´t hang out with the locals, nope, not even with "former classmates".

There was this one situation that made me think "WHAT?!!?!?!" a couple of years ago. I went to a summer party of the local youth center. I think I was around 22 years old. I met one of my former classmates and her mom. They sure asked me what I do for a living. During that time I was a graphic designer for DVD menus (you know, Main Menu, Scene Selection... all these nice little things you see when you BUY a DVD and watch it ;oD).
So I´ve told them, and they were like "Ok.... Ummmm... what is a DVD?" You know what I ended up telling everybody after that "incident" when they asked me what my profession is? I just said I design advertisements for a local newspaper....

People are different. I know everybody has the right to choose their own path. But seriously: I´m happy I wanted more in life than staying in this SMALL town (3000 citizens), marrying my first boyfriend (who ended up in jail several times already... my brother just told me that :oD), building a house in my early 20s and being a stay at home mom before even turning 25...
Instead of planning a "trip to the city" once every couple of months, I decided to just MOVE to the city when I was just about to turn 17.

So nope, no class reunions for me. One friendship made it through all the years and still gets stronger and stronger! K is like a sister for me, and even though we are thousands of miles apart, I know I can call her, no matter what! We even make it and meet up once a year or every 2 years.

This friendship made spending all these years in the freaking small town worth it ;)