3/21/2016
TO THE CLASS OF 2006,
Hey all. So in about two weeks, most of you guys will all be getting together again for our 10-year class reunion. I say most, because I know I won’t be there. Nope, instead of being in Salem, Oregon that weekend I will be somewhere in the Philippines for month 4 of my 11-month mission trip known as the World Race (if you don’t know what that is check out the blog that I’m posting this letter in).
I’m sitting here right now in a lodge in Zambia after a day’s work on a play park we’re building this month, and I can’t help but wonder about you guys. I’ve been thinking a lot about you guys since I first saw the Facebook group message about the reunion.
When we graduated 10-years ago I never thought that I wouldn’t be in touch with anyone from our class. But here we are 10 years later, and I realize that some of you I haven’t talked to since the day we graduated, for some it’s been 8 or so years, but to be honest outside of the occasional run in at East when I visit my mom, or the occasional chat on Facebook I realized the other day that I haven’t talked to any of you in almost five years. It made me sad to realize that our class that was once so tight, has fallen apart, has grown apart, to the point that very few of us are in touch regularly. Outside of Facebook, or hearing a random update from my mom I don’t know what’s going on in anyone lives really. I miss you all.
When I first saw the Facebook invite to the reunion it sent me back a few years to remembering my time at Livingstone (haha…I’m actually sitting in Livingstone, Zambia right now….okay so that may only be funny to me). Remember when Kyle pulled the fire alarm, or when Sequeira had to pull it to get all of you in on that April Fool’s joke out from under the stage. Who knows how many times I actually fell into that pond behind the school? All of our touch/flag-football games that usually became more tackle then touch/flag. Softball and soccer games instead of class. Friendship tournaments at Walla Walla and Buller’s Boot-Camp for P.E. I do, I remember it all and so much more. Remember the crying babies in Sophomore Health; Watching Dickerson’s wedding video when Mrs. Dickerson would pass out. I remember science experiments, and trying to see how close we could get to the burner without catching stuff on fire. Or how ‘bout the countless times we watched Remember the Titans. One of my favorite songs to this day is still Can’t You Feel the Love even though Sequeira only ever played it to make us get along and stop fighting. I remember all of circle times in 7th grade when we’d talk about not putting each other down. How about the eighth grade class trip when the cops got called on us, not just once but multiple times while at Sun-River. I remember eighth grade grad when we talked about how we were going to top it for high school grad and then high school grad came and we decided to just stay simple. I remember all of our camp-outs to Christmas Valley or wherever we choose to go that year. I remember the day Buller told us he was leaving, it felt like the beginning of the end; but I also remember the day we voted to have him be our class elected speaker for grad, it was probably the first time we ever did something and unanimously agreed on it. I remember the day McPherson started teaching, and realizing High School was quickly coming to an end as he prepared us for what College Tests would be like. I also remember our Senior Mission trip, because that was the week I chose to accept Christ on my own. What I remember though most was how close we were, despite all of our differences, and our likes and dislikes we all were a family. We could put each down, not talk to each other, not always agree, but when the time came it was us against the world and no one from the outside could tear us down.
We were a family. A family that watched us grow from kids to young adults. As I look back on my life you all will always be a huge part of it so Thank you for that.
I remember during senior class trip we talked a little about where we thought each other would be in the future. I want you guys to know how proud I am of all of us. Many of us are married. Congrats to Andrew/Dianne and Randy/Michelle for making it, you guys made it, it’s rare to have a high school relationship last and yet we had two… Congrats to all of you who have kids, it’s been awesome watching them growing up on Facebook, I hope one day I’ll be able to meet them. Congrats to all of us who have graduated from College, and for those who are still pushing through keep on going I know you can do it. To those of you who completed your service in the military thank you for being willing to give up those years to serve for our country.
I know life hasn’t always been easy since graduation. No one ever said it would be. But look here we are we made it, 10-years later and we’re all still alive to tell the tale. We’ve all had heartbreak, we’ve all lived, loved, and lost. But here we are we survived and I wish I could be there to celebrate 10 years with you all.
Since I’m not going to be there for the reunion, I’m going to include an update on my life here. Since high school ended, life got hectic and crazy for me. I had a few rough years (well like 7). I lost my dad to cancer in 2009, and a close family member to suicide in 2011. I bounced around from college to college for many years (I mean consistency wasn’t always my thing, I did it in middle/high school as well). I spent many years drowning my sorrows in alcohol and other substances, but through it all I’ve come out stronger on this end. I graduated from Eastern Oregon University in June 2015 with a Bachelors of Arts in English with a minor in Business Marketing. I live in La Grande, Oregon full time now, and help run Youth Group (Rooted) for my church First Baptist Church of La Grande. Yes, I left the SDA church, but as my previous blog post say’s just because I left the SDA church doesn’t mean I left the church altogether. This year (2016) I’m spending my life on an 11-month Mission trip, in which I am to traveling to 11 different countries in 11 months. Like I said, I’m currently in Zambia and headed to the Philippines on the 3rd. I’m single and just liven’ life to the fullest right now, and the way that God is calling me to live it. I don’t have a clue as to what I’m gonna do when I get back to the states at the end of November/ Early December, (okay maybe no clue isn’t correct, I have an idea, but I’m still trying to figure it all out), but I know that whatever it is adventure is out there and I’ll find it, and I’ll live my life the way God intended.
By now, at this point of the letter, I’m gathering you can tell that God, and my Christian walk is a big part of my life. I have no intention of using this letter to you guys to preach and tell you all what you should or should not believe, because the truth is I don’t even know where most of you stand on the subject, and it’s not like I can judge based on where we were and what we believed in high school, because I for one know I’m not the same person I was back then; but I do want you guys to know who I am and where I’m at in life currently and for me a big part of that is my relationship with Christ and my walk with him.
I guess what I want to say is this…none of us are who we were in high school, we’ve all grown up, changed, and have lived the last 10 years learning more about ourselves and what it’s like to live in this world. I wish I could be there when you all get together to hear stories about the last 10 years, to hear how your kids are doing or about Chelsea’s travels. I wish I could be there to laugh at the memories, remember the good and the bad; to be there to talk about those who came in and out of our lives, we’ve had a few over the years. You guys were a large part of my life and I do miss you all.
So here is to the class of 2006. We had many great years together. Life has taken us and thrown us all around, and we’ve grown and changed so much. Here is to the last ten years, I hope you’ve all taken it in stride, and let life teach you what it needed to, and that you’ve all gown in ways that you never imagined. Here’s to the next ten years, I hope that in ten years when it’s time to do the 20-year reunion that we can all be there, and that our children will be able to hang out and laugh at us as we re-live our high school memories. I hope that in the next ten years that maybe some of us who haven’t connected much in the last ten will be able too. I hope that life continues to stretch and grow us, and that we never cease to learn from it. I hope that I get to see you all in the next ten years, and that when the time comes for that twenty-year reunion, that we will all be there to look back on the last twenty years and go, damn, where has time gone…seems like only yesterday we getting a lecture from Sequeira about the importance of grades in high school, or Mr. Koch sitting in for Mansell during our first Bible class with him talking about the Birds and the Bees. I hope that we never lose our wonder, and that we always search for truth and knowledge, that we continue to be adventures, that we laugh, we love, and we live.
To the class of 2006, congrats on surviving the last 10 years of our lives, and here’s to the future. May God bless you all, and may you never forget what we had growing up.
I love each and every one of you, and I miss you all.
-Dee Dee Peters-
