The day after Alton Towers Theme Park, I had to run 3.5 miles, pack and get on a bus to London. God, what a stressful life I lead! (sarcasm!)

Important re-date with senior year high school prom date.

Mark and I had been friends all throughout high school; as we had a mutual sense of humor, had fathers born in the Caribbean, a genuine love of partying, and both had a fondness for men.

No one wanted to be my date for my junior prom. No, seriously, I had three different guys (as opposed to the same guy three times) give me excuses for reasons why they couldn’t go. I didn’t beg them, oh no. Instead, I had a mother intervene.  Yes, my mother kindly, and perhaps slightly bitterly and a bit anxiously, asked the poor friend of my stepsister’s sitting across from us at the dinner table to PUHLEASE take her daughter off her hands and escort her to the junior prom.

Too embarrassed by the Junior Prom incident, I refrained from going anywhere near straight boys for my Senior Prom. So, Mark thankfully took me off my worried mother’s hands (I’m sure she was convinced I would never find someone decent). Perhaps he didn’t want to be left alone with me either, but he invited his friend Jack to join us.

We made a fierce threesome – Mark and I in color coordinated pink and blue pastel outfits and Jack, well, just dressed normally.

We hadn’t seen each other in six years, and although I am no longer on facebook, my mother saw a posting Mark had put saying that he was traveling through England, she emailed him, and told him I was here. Yes! Not being on facebook worked again! I conquered!

Great day out. We picked up as if no time had passed, reminiscing about how bad of an influence we were on the other, and bringing up old jokes and laughing just as hard.

Tour of Parliament Building, Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Notting Hill and an incredible pastry shop called Ottolenghi.

I had this out of body moment where I saw us much older, with lines in our faces, doing the same thing sixteen years from now.

High school certainly doesn’t feel like ten years ago, and yet here I am. “Where does the time go?” I thought to myself – alarmed that I sounded a bit like I promised myself I would never sound.

Seeing old friends does that to you, I guess. It puts your journey into perspective. I feel more experienced, but the crux of who we are remains the same.

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