Popularity Court

I’ve had wild dreams lately. I can’t always remember them when I wake up, but last night’s I do remember and it was incredibly off-the-wall.
My high school had this thing called Snowcoming (our winter version of homecoming). I got on “Court” once in my career and the super catty girls – the ones who thought they were more popular than they actually were and cared more about popularity than the fun they had with their friends – all insisted there must have been a mistake. I’d been a part of that group for about a year – partying&rebelling – then I settled back down with the girlfriends I’d always been genuine with. (For the most part in highschool, I always jumped around – I had lots of friends who were always friends, but I floated from group to group or enjoyed my time alone.) ANYWHO, in my dream last night, I was in with the catty girls (a couple of whom I’ve recently run across on facebook) and we were shopping for alumna Snowcoming dresses. One of the girls, who I’d been closest with, was elected to Snowcoming Court and so was I. We spent hours running around shopping for dresses in my dream and our friend (who’s pregnant in real life) tagged along insisting that she’d be the Snowcoming Queen if she weren’t pregnant.
All the irritations of highschool burned my sleeping ears and when I finally woke up from the nightmare I was reminded how much I don’t miss the drama. Moments like those make me remember why I went through “loner” phases where I’d spend my evenings in the local coffee shop working on yearbook layouts instead of drinking stolen vodka from parents’ liquor cabinets. (Don’t get me wrong, I did plenty of that.) I never seemed to fall for the idea that the fight for popularity was actually worth the popularity and I think I turned out better without it.