A Normal Reunion I had on a peach rayon dress under the black robe and I was about to address the class of 1987. It was my idea for the three valedictorians to talk about the past, present, and future. Rob, whose best friend had died several years before of a rare disease, covered the past. He and I emailed years later about his lymphoma and my CFIDS (we both got sick in our twenties) but first my friend Kim was talking about the present. There were over 400 kids in cap and gown and at least a thousand people in the bleachers and I was terrified to stand in front of them and talk about the future. I had such severe stage fright, in fact, that I had been liberally using over-the-counter sleeping pills in the months before. My hair was big and lacquered that night. My sister once talked about how she never saw adulthood as some great thing. We both felt a sense of dread about it. I was uneasy that night, as if I knew the cliff in front of me – knew it like a Wile E. Coyote who h
