Admission – I kinda left high school and never looked back. I guess college happened and then the rest of my life! And then I joined FACEBOOK, the social networking sight. I joined as Carly Phillips as a means of book/name brand recognition. Most of my friends were authors and readers. I built up friends quickly.
And then a funny thing happened. Some old high school friends found me. I’m not sure how since I’m listed as Carly Phillips, a pseudonym. It was fun to reconnect. And then some more friends found me. It reached the point where I now regret doing a Carly Phillips Facebook because I have over 1,000 friends there and it’s hard to sort through for people who know ME from days gone by! So now from a person who left and never looked back, I bought a scanner and I scanned pics from 1979 to share with these old friends! 
Of course one of them started it!
So I was wondering, as you got older, did you embrace your past or sort of run from it? Because I have to tell you, it’s been fun looking over my shoulder again!
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Warm wishes for a Happy Birthday go out to Plotmonkey Pal Stephanie Staton today! We hope you have a fabulous, fun-filled day!
Carly Phillips would like to take 100% credit for all her stories but the truth is, Carly’s strength is writing family, emotion, funky elderly people and animals. She couldn’t plot her way out of a paper bag, which is why she smartly found her plotmonkey pals early on in her writing career. Thanks to their support, Carly is now a NYT Bestselling author of 23 plus novels. Because writing doesn’t keep her busy enough, Carly is also a wife, a mother of one preteen and one teenage daughter, the primary care giver of her soft coated Wheaten terrier and an expert carpool mom.
Destiny
Dirty Little Secrets
Once Upon A Valentine
Through The Night
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Happy birthday Stephanie!
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Carly-as someone who wasted a weekend this summer on my 30th class reunion, I am glad I never really looked back too much. Many of the people I saw were still stuck in HS groove and have never grown up. A few old friends though had done good (and they all left town too). I really haven’t run into many of them on facebook or myspace- which is fine with me. The one person I did run into that I keep in touch with I found on Pogo of all places. I don’t regret leaving. What I regret is thinking maybe things had changed after all the years away. I won’t be going back to the next one, but I do keep informed through the school page we have set up. I was the geeky girl who always had her nose in a book, didn’t do sports (not coordinated enough), smart but too shy to show it or use it, and in general one of those people that others were just drawn to mock.
Somethings never change. I am glad I moved from the po-dunk town.
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Ev, I hear you. I never went to a reunion and still wouldn’t, I think. It’s fun to have the moments of looking back now, but I love my life! :givethaks
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Carly, I grew up in a small Oregon town well from 6th grade on we had about 3000 people I remeber when they put in the first fast food restraunt in a Dairy Queen my freshman year. So after graduation I stuck around for a year to go to cosmetology school then at 19 I moved to Seattle and hardly looked back. when I went back 3 years later to my sister’s graduation no one recognized me. for the most part I’ve kept in contact with 2 people. When I joined face book all of a sudden it was a high school reunion on line. most of them stayed around town and many of them stil get together. I also have you as a friend
you are the only author unlike my myspace page which is almost all authors. :freezin
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Happy Birthday, Stephanie. Hope it is great.
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Carly,
I loved high school when a lot of my friends from high school would never want to go back. I went to my 10th reunion and it was so bad. I did not go to my 20th for that reason. My 25th will be next year and I would really like to go. None of my close friends will go though and I would want to go with someone. Although I loved those days, the people from those days are not the same people today and I usually end up disappointed. But I love chatting with someone I haven’t in awhile.
Happy Birthday Stephanie!
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Happy Birthday Stephanie
:jiveturkey:
I never looked back.
High school wasn’t a memorable time for me.
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Happy Birthday, Stephanie!
I never looked back to my high school years. I was the ‘geeky’ girl. Last September was my 20th reunion. I went to my 10th and it was the same ‘cliques’, except that everyone was holding an alcoholic beverage legally. I have heard that the 30th is better. My graduating class does have a facebook page. I have ‘clicked’ on people (without adding them) and it is interesting to see how people have changed.
I might consider going to a reunion in 10 years. Who knows.
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Hi Carly,
I have left high school behind. I came to the conclusion years ago that anyone I cared to keep in touch with I did. My best friend from high school married my cousin and I see her at family get togethers and I actually work with a guy that I went to high school with now. LOL I didn’t even remember him but he recognized me. LOL
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HAPPY BIRTHDAY, STEPHANIE!!
I RUN!! High school was not a fun time for me. There are a few people I can count on one hand that I don’t mind seeing over my shoulder.
Have a great day all,
Cher :danmonk
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Happy Birthday, Stephanie!!!
Well, I can’t say that I never looked back, because my dad still lives in the same town and I do go home at least once a year to see him. But I rarely see any of the people that I went to school with.
And, if I do happen to run into them, I don’t recognize them!
A lot of things change in 25 years! The skinny cheerleader is now rather large. The guy that had the wild mane of hair is now bald. I’m sure that when we’re out eating or shopping at the Wal-mart I run in to old classmates, but I never know it! :giggler
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I never looked back, and truly have no desire to. I’ve never been to any class reunions (there is no one there I want to see or talk to, LOL). My best friend from high school is still my best friend now, and that’s what matters to me — is the friendships that stand the test of time. :wub:
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In all honesty I am only 21 so it hasn’t been that long since high school. But I do think about things that I did when I was younger. I know that some I would like to go back and redo over again. But I will get back to you in a few years. :)
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Happy Birthday, Stephanie!
I really never left high school behind! I’ve attended all the” every 5 years”
reunions for the past 50 years and have served on the reunion committee
for 30-something years. I even chaired our 50th reunion in 2004! The
people I have lost touch with are mu nursing school classmates!
Pat Cochran
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hey carly if you go to your friends tab on facebook you can separate your author/fan friends from you high school friends. all you have to do is create a new list and click all the people you want in each one. Its a bit time consuming but it works.
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Pat, you sound like my mom! She organizes every reunion and has for as long as I can remember. They do little shows for their reunion, so they had rehearsals at our house and I even choreographed for them one year back when I was dancing in college.
This is an interesting topic because I just learned that the Class of 1983 lost our first classmate a week ago. She might actually be the second one, but she was the first one that I really remember. Her name was Felicia Hopkins and she was the most amazing person! I often sat near her at lunch (her posse and mine got along well) and she was always the life of the party. Genuinely sweet and got along with everyone. I’ve always wondered what she was up to, even looked for her a few times on MySpace, but I never knew until this week that she’d been living in Atlanta, roommates with her best friend from high school. The world is a sadder place, but heaven is happier, for Fefe being there. Shame we hadn’t kept in touch. She was likely living in Atlanta the same time I was.
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I went to my 10 year reunion, but haven’t really kept up with many people from when I was in high school. I have started talking to some since I joined facebook. Also have found lots of my college friends on facebook and love getting back in touch with everyone.
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I never looked back. I have two friends from high school that I keep up with and that’s about it– everyone else kind of fell by the wayside as college, marriage, career, kids, life, happened. I haven’t been to a reunion yet, but my fifteenth is coming up pretty quickly. So maybe . . .
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I attended my 10th High School reunion and it was awful. In ten years nothing had changed. Same old stuff. It was like I was still in high school. My husband talk me into going to our 20th and I actually had a good time. Will I attend any others, probably not.
My best friend from high school and I still keep in touch. The test of time leads to true friendship. :love:
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Carly, I’m definitely one of the ones who ran from high school. None of my classmastes were really my friends and I don’t keep in touch with any of them. The only person from my graduating class I occasionally see is the only other person from my HS who went to the same college as me, and I only see him at college functions, like our 5-year class reunion this summer. Other than that, the only people I see from HS are my brother’s friends since he was only a year ahead of me and keeps in touch with them.
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Interesting subject! I attended my 10th & 20th Class reunions, had fun, then they lost track of me!! I did find out about my 50th, which was this summer, by joining the Classreunion website. I didn’t go as by the time I found out the dates I was committed to going to RWA! I don’t regret those circumstances at all! After all, I got to meet all the Plotmonkeys and some other favorite authors which is more meaningful than people that I am not in touch with any longer!! Contact and friendship have to go both ways. I grew up in Medford, OR but left there in 1967 for California. This is now home. After trying to keep in touch with some friends through the years I just let it go. I was the one always doing the work to keep in touch and eventually just stopped because it seemed like they didn’t care enough to put forth any effort. The people that cared & still care are friends that I treasure. :wave:
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I think about the past a lot. I don’t think that I try to relive it. But I do remember the good times and the good people. Over the years, we lose contact with people who had a huge impact in our lives. In the past year, I heard from a friend from my grade school years. Having a friend from those years is huge for me. I think that I went to three different grade schools and four different junior highs in five different towns and seven different houses. Since Annie actually lived across from my grandmother’s house, we played together in the summers. Later, when I moved to the same town, we stayed friends even though we never went to the same school. It was great to hear from her. Likewise, I heard from a high school friend. We had helped each other through rough times in high school. She was one person who could always make me laugh. It was great to hear from her.
I think that friendship is such an enormous gift. I try to never forget anyone who offered me friendship in this lifetime.
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I moved away from where I went to high school at but now I have been back for a few years. I try not to run into the people I went to school with, most of them have not grown up still. It is hard seeing all of them and they are still no where in life and most of them still live with their parents and they have kids too.
So I don’t want to go to any reunion anytime soon, but if I see them on face book ( which I don’t do much on yet but I have account) or myspace that would be okay.
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I guess I ran from my past. I went to one class reunion, and said ‘Never Again.’
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:X I don’t think I’m really… haha don’t hate me but I’m not there yet. Looking at my “past” would be more like turning my head a tiny bit- but I think looking over my shoulder later would be fun
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Julie – I know exactly how you feel. Last summer we lost one of our classmates and this guy was truly amazing. I remember his very first day of school (our sophmore year)! He was the best looking guy to ever go to our school, he is still considered one of the top 5 best basketball players to go to our school. He was also one of the best baseball players ever and an unbelievably talented artist.
He had full scholarship offers in basketball, baseball, art and academics. On top of it, he was one of the nicest guys and most gentle souls you’d ever want to meet. I had the opportunity to date him for a brief period in college and after we lost touch I thought of him often. I found out two weeks afterwards that he’d passed away. And the saddest part (to me) was that he was on vacation when he died, at his favorite place in the world, a beach less than an hour from my home.
All this time, he spent lots of time in my area, and I never knew it. Like you said, the world is a sadder place but I know he’s making the angels smile with his lopsided, easy going grin and simple charm.
You know, I guess there are a few people that I’d like to see again. Maybe I’ll check it out on Facebook and see who I can find…..
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I moved around a bit when I was in high school, so I’m still in touch with those people that I want to be in touch with, otherwise I can’t see the point.
That said, I’m a little young for reunions yet, so maybe in the future.
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Thanks for the birthday wishes! It was a great birthday.
Since I’m now another year older, I can safely say that I embrace my past. It makes me who I am today. Besides it can be fun looking back.