Kelli

Do you have one of those family members that while you were growing up felt he or she was the epitome of coolness? For me that was my cousin Kelli. Her mom and my dad are first cousins and although I didnt know who she was until high school (not being that super close to my dad’s side of the family) she was well basically everything I wanted to be in high school. She was popular, pretty, her family had money, she was on the drill team, then on the song leaders (cheerleading but more dancey).

When word got out that Kelli was my friend, people who had never talked to me before would always ask me about Kelli. The only thing I could tell her was that she was my cousin. We rarely talked while we attended the same school. Not because she was popular and I was not, it was just simply that our circle of friends were two different groups. She had hung out with those who went to Dryer middle school and I from Crest View Middle… It happens that way in high school when there are many middle schools that feed one high school.

Recently her grandmother sent pictures of a baby Kate through our family email list and I noticed that she had recieved them from a Kelli. Well I figured it was the same Kelli since well Kelli is the only Kelli in our family. But to be sure I emailed the list asking Carol if it was the same Kelli, and the reply I recieved basically confirmed it. Right away I emailed Kelli directly about her baby and we’ve been lightly corresponding since.

Despite how very distant it seems, causal talking to get to know each other stuff… it seems still very different worldish to me. As if Kelli is still way too cool to be my friend… ::laughs:: Social sets that set in while in high school are hard to break once you become an adult. Odd.. but if I got to go back and confront my tormenters from my senior year (because we all had em) I could do it, confidently, but become friends with the all elusive Kelli… ::laughs:: the teen ager inside me comes running out freaked that she might not be “cool” enough. I know that we are both adults now and social standards are not set by what middle school you came from but it still feels like it should be.