Homecoming Post In Under the Wire

I paid up today.

I registered for the full reunion event and paid up. Even got the hotel room booked and paid for.

We’ve been committed since September, since I took on a more aggressive workout schedule and this crazy-ass diet.

We’ve been planning to go for months.

But now we’re totally in.

Herndon Hornets Class of 1995. Whoop.

And, actually, I’m pretty excited.

This crazy glow of nostalgia has been omnipresent here lately.

I listen only to Counting Crows radio on Pandora (Blues Traveler, Dave Matthews Band, Tonic, Gin Blossoms).

I recently updated an old tattoo and wrote a story about finding my 19 year-old self again.

We’ve been discussing free-range parenting and the benefits of that approach.

I write GenX stories. They’re mostly fictionalized versions of my stories but they’re familiar to anyone in their 20’s in the 90’s.

Hollywood is all over GenX from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles remake to The Goldbergs.

Strawberry Shortcake and Skeletor are selling Hondas. So GenX is being targeted by marketers and they’re using nostalgia to do it.

Then again, I might be the family member at the reunion who purchased the entire family tree on ancestry.com. Focusing on GenX could make me a kind of time-traveling vampire.

Reunions are like cupcakes to me. I’m a big fan of milestones and reviewing one’s journey.

Reunions and homecoming and nostalgia are all part of our Wordsmith Studio Anniversary Month. I got this one in on the last day. Phew!

We love taking a chance to remember how we first met, how we got started, how we struggled, how we supported one another, and how far we’ve come.

While I may be the crazy-GenX-obsessed lady at the HHS ’95 reunion, I don’t feel pressure to have accomplished any more than I have. I think a PhD and my own business, a 14-year marriage and a first grade darling are all sufficient. I do have some fitness goals (hence the workouts and diet) but in truth I’ve been working out and dieting for years. I’ve only turned it up to 11 in the last few months.

My Wordsmith Studio reunion friends aren’t that interested in whether I’ve been able to shed the 40 pounds I found since 1995. They just want to know I’m writing.

And I am.

I’m writing stories about being 18. Seventeen. Sixteen. All my teenage stories that it took me so long to gain perspective on.

I’m writing my twenties and my thirties with elegant juxtapositions that show transformation. Kind of like this blog.

The stories aren’t particularly unique but the voice is unique.

GenX hasn’t had a storyteller claim to be a GenX storyteller yet. 

So I’m after a new genre, creating a new niche, and expecting someone will eventually give me a chance to prove this is a valid effort.

I kind of doubt that somebody will be an agent – they are sales people, after all, not marketers. But I’ll keep looking anyway.

In the meantime, hone the craft. Submit and polish and submit again. Believe in the work. Look forward to sharing.

Keep dieting. Keep strength training.

Be glad you’ve found yourself again.

Welcome home.