Cliques

I graduated high school in 1980. It would be five years before The Breakfast Club would premiere in theaters showing how five kids from different cliques would discover they had more in common than any of them knew. I've seen it many, many times over the years, but in high school did not live it. Cliques I mean. I wasn't popular, but I also wasn't hated or shunned by fellow students and felt no animosity towards them. Other students would say hello to me in the halls, and while I wasn't invited to any cool parties, I was more apt to hang with a few close friends or at my brother and sister-in-law's house. I was once told it was because my family had been in the area since the late 1800's so I got a pass as being "local". I have no idea how to verify this as true or false, so I don't know where to add to or link it in my imaginary storyboard or where to run the red yarn from the pushpins.

I did experience "rejections" later in life though.

When my son was in preschool a few of the younger mothers had a odd little clique and one mom especially would quite hatefully make sure I knew I wasn't invited to join their circle. I found it amusing that these young women were, I assumed from the dozen times I had watched The Breakfast Club at this point (see how I tied that together?), trying to relive a high school experience they had had or missed out on. Like being the "cool moms" maybe?

I became a mom at 40, so was at such a different place in my life than them. I graduated college with a BA in Communications, burned through millions if not billions of brain cells in my 20's and 30's, and I may have mentioned I met fricking WOLF MAN JACK! 

One thing I wonder about is if I'm going to run into cliques as I age. I don't plan to move to a retirement home, I don't plan to move anywhere, but I also know most things that will happen in my "golden years" won't be planned or even possibly wanted. Is it a common worry or a common experience? I have no clue but I assume any time you put a group of people together, like the preschool mom's I mentioned, there will almost always be "those types" who will want to be seen as better than everyone else.

“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone."

                               -Oscar Wilde

This is me getting ready to graduate high school and conquer the world.