The other day I had lunch with two dear girlfriends I don’t get to see very often, women I met once I moved back to Phoenix. We talked about recent purchases at Last Chance, recent travels, and recent blog posts.

“Wow, you’re so brave!” one remarked over the post about Sophie’s experience at birthday parties and mine in high school that I’d put up earlier in the week.

Nah, I told her. Writing that piece wasn’t brave. But posting it on my Facebook page was.

Or maybe it was just dumb. Or even a little mean.

The truth is usually a little more complicated than a blog post. And when I started getting emails from classmates apologizing for being mean (if they were — they didn’t recall any incidents but wanted to say sorry just in case) and also some from others recalling good times we did have together in high school, I realized that although I did toss in a parenthetical about how I did in fact have some friends in high school, I probably shouldn’t have gone so far in general, in comparing my situation to Sophie’s.

Not that the comparison is wholly inaccurate.

The emails were fascinating. One classmate who would have been considered part of the “popular” crowd in high school admitted she hadn’t used the word geek in years, but thought it when she saw some of our nerdier classmates at the reunion, and was a little horrified at herself.

Another wrote something really lovely that he gave me permission to repost here. (He also told me I could rewrite it if I thought it needed it, which it most certainly does not.)

This is a guy who always struck me, looking back, as comfortable in his own skin — the thing I never was. Friendly to others (including to me, he reminded me we were on the school newspaper together, something I’d frankly forgotten) and an all around nice guy; Class Clown meets Guy Next Door. Certainly not someone I had the luck of hanging around with. 

I read your post, this guy wrote me on Facebook.

I too, was going to blow off the reunion as I didn’t feel like sharing the past 34 months of divorce, foreclosure, failure and insanity with my classmates. I went anyway, and it turned out to be fun in some ways, predictable in others, but in the end, another party. The difference this time was: At our 10 year reunion, we were still climbing, at our 20, it was more of a parade of things we had accomplished, at this one, it was an admission of “who the fuck cares” …. and if you remember my personality at all, this reunion was the most fitting for my C+ student, but socially functional brain to handle. If it wasn’t for football and dating [a cute cheerleader] as a sophomore, I don’t think I would have been a memory for many. It’s funny how all have our isolated defining moments, and really, it’s all front page news in our own brains, nothing more. Here today, gone tomorrow as something else takes it’s place and the water subsides, ripples come to an end. Narcissism continues and people fade into the soap operas of their lives that only exist between their own two ears.

Now that was a brave email to write. So was the one from the popular girl with the geek story.

The complicated truth — or part of it, anyway — is that I still have a lot to learn from Sophie. No, I wasn’t popular in high school. But even so, I had classmates I, too, deemed too geeky to befriend. I thought of that as I looked at pictures of the reunion someone posted on Facebook. I guess high school really is just one big hierarchy, a la The Breakfast Club.

It’s not that Sophie will befriend just anyone (I see her give the heave ho to people all the time, particularly doting adults) but she’d never turn someone down for being a geek. And, unlike her mother, she doesn’t hold a grudge.

This morning, Annabelle was balancing her cake for the cake walk carefully as we walked from the car to school, slower than the other groups. (OK, here’s a digression — how could anyone not know what a cake walk is?! Ms. X graciously provided a super explanation.)

As we headed toward school, I saw the future “bitchy student body president” and her dad, ahead of us on the sidewalk. I noticed the girl turn around, look at Sophie, sneer a bit, toss her head in the air and literally skip away. I wanted to catch up with that little girl and trip her. Sophie didn’t even notice.

 We got to school and Annabelle showed off her cake, and I forgot all about it. Sort of. I better not see that girl at the school carnival tonight. And no, I can already tell you that I’m not going to my 30th high school reunion.

 Not brave enough.

I had to admit to myself this weekend that I have come to loathe birthday parties. That is quite an admission for someone who named her blog Girl in a Party Hat.

OK, maybe I found myself curled up in the fetal position on the couch late Saturday afternoon because I skipped lunch and it was over 100 degrees out (in mid-October, damn it!) and I had slept for just four hours the previous night.

But I swear it was because of that birthday party.

Sophie and I had looked forward to it for weeks — one more in a long parade of birthday parties already this year; apparently most of her class was born in September and October. This particular celebration was held at a kiddie beauty salon called Snip-Its, and promised a theme of Glamour. It delivered.

By the end of two hours, the girls had put on fancy dresses; had their hair done; put on makeup, which they were then allowed to keep in the makeup bag they picked out; finished a craft (a door hanger made of fun foam — “the princess is in”); donned feather boas for a red carpet fashion show; and eaten chocolate cupcakes with three inches of pink and purple frosting.

Heaven, right?

For me, it was hell. And for Sophie? Hard to say.

She seems to be more and more in touch with her social surroundings, which worries me. Just that morning in ballet, I had watched her approach a couple little girls she was in line with, waiting to do leaps. I couldn’t hear through the glass, but what I saw was obvious: They blew her off, turning their backs and giggling together.

I always tell myself Sophie doesn’t notice such slights (and she does invite them by acting odd, I’ll admit that — it’s never really the other kids’ fault, and sometimes I know they can’t understand what she’s saying) but this time I couldn’t deny it. Sophie turned around and walked to the corner, sinking to the ground and sulking.

A few minutes later she was up again, but by then I had to turn my own back. I couldn’t bear to watch. It was the same at the birthday party. I so want Sophie to be included, to be invited to these parties, but I’m beginning to wonder if we’d both be better off if I declined the invitations.

Maybe the truth is that she’ll never be included, not the way we both want her to be.

Now Annabelle, she’s another story. The other day she told my mom that the kids actually fight over who gets to sit next to her at lunch. She’s got that magic something that makes people like her.

I never had that as a child or teenager. Not til the last few months, when high school classmates started friending me on Facebook, asking if I was going to our 25th reunion. Um, no. As in, no fucking way. I am mature enough at this point to realize it was more my fault than anyone else’s, but let’s just say that I did not enjoy my years at Arcadia High School and no, I don’t wish to relive them.

I was happy and I’ll admit a little flattered to hear from some friendly classmates. I guess we’ve grown up. But still, I declined the invite to the reunion.

(And here I must interject and admit that perhaps I am being a bit melodramatic. I did have friends in high school, but I was an odd duck without a good reason like, say, a chromosomal abnormality. It’s not a time I like to think about — though having kids, particularly Sophie, somehow makes me think about it a lot.)

Standing in the doorway of the party room at Snip-Its, staring at the four little girls sitting around the table with (but not really with — no one spoke to her the entire time, except when she got in their way) Sophie, I suddenly saw each of those four girls in 10 years: cheerleader, cheerleader, cheerleader, bitchy student body president. And my kid, the one who doesn’t fit in.  

Sophie deserves a lot of credit. She tries. She kept calling “HAPPY BIRTHDAY” across the table to the birthday girl, who I swear didn’t crack a smile the entire time — at Sophie, or anyone else for that matter. Driving home, I asked Sophie if she had fun with the other girls. Her response: “Where was Sarah?”

Sarah is Sophie’s BFF, she of the very successful playdate. I don’t know where Sarah was, but I’m guessing Sarah’s mom (who has several older children) is smart enough to not hit every birthday party.

“I’m sorry Sarah wasn’t there,” I told Sophie. “I know she’s your good friend.”

Funny, just the night before, my dear friend Kathy and I had a long talk about how that’s all you really need — one good friend.

“If you’ve got two, you’re way ahead of a lot of people,” Kathy said.

She’s right. And in the end, even if you walk down that red carpet alone, more power to you if you hold your head high and smile.

(Actually, I just asked him, since he’s across the kitchen making coffee. I’ll have to edit part of his response, but he said he’s not exactly sure, he probably played raquetball or watched a movie. “Speech and debate tournament?” he said, in response to his own query. “Wow. That’s pretty geeky.”)

So neither of us can say boo on the topic. If either of our daughters goes, it’ll be a genetic feat. But speaking of genetics, it’s always bugged me that so many kids with DS get elected prom king and queen. I know it’s not even Valentine’s Day, but this topic arose yesterday when I was telling a colleague about the Today Show basketball thing.

“Yeah, you don’t want your kid to be a mascot,” she said. “Like how they always elect the kids with Down syndrome to be prom king or queen. I hate that. It’s so insulting.”

This woman is considerably younger than I, so high school is fresher in her mind. And unlike me, she was probably considered cool — cool enough, as she admitted, to help engineer the prom king election of a kid who wasn’t disabled or anything, but really smelled. It was payback for the girl who was going to be prom queen — no one liked her. (Go figure, how’d she win?)

This woman’s point: It’s way worse to get elected for the wrong reasons, whether they be because you’re smelly and unpopular or because you’re the dorky kid with DS who high fives everyone in the hall.

I know, I know. I’m a real downer this week. (Which is odd, since I’m on such a high after Night Four of the Big Girl Bed. Borrowed time, I fear.) It’s one of those cases of overthinking, again. Really, if Sophie wants to be prom queen, I hope she wins. I guess. Honestly, I can’t say I’m sure I’ll feel that way. I’m willing to reserve complete judgement.

For the record, no, I didn’t get asked to prom. But I did come in FOURTH for Miss Olympian, which was our version of prom queen at Arcadia High School. I’m not sure I was supposed to know, only the top three were officially named; some kid in my English class was on student council and told me. True, I was in a lot of activities in high school, but I was also a total geek, so I’ll have to wonder my whole life why I got those votes at all.

I wonder if they’ll let Sophie on the speech and debate team. I wonder if she’ll want to be on it.