Tomorrow evening is my high school class reunion. My 10th, though it feels like it should only be my 2nd. Ten years passed in the blink of an eye, yet high school seemed interminably slow at times. The ages 14 thru 18 are a bizarre, horrifying, exciting, and, now that I can look back with a healthy dose of perspective and a great pair of rose-colored glasses, pretty great. Seriously, at what other point in life is your biggest concern what dress you'll wear to a dance, if so-and-so will notice you in the hallway, or what grade you'll get on some (relatively unimportant) test?
I've had many mixed feelings about this reunion. My class never held a fifth year reunion, so this is literally the first time I will see many of the people in my class in a decade. I've kept in contact with a very small number of people from high school--mainly my three closest friends (one of whom I'm going with to this reunion. We've been friends since the 4th grade; she'll never get rid of me). I'm Facebook "friends" with quite a few people from my class, but I wouldn't say that we actually "keep in touch", despite all the promises to do so scrawled in ink in each other's senior yearbooks.
My initial reaction to hearing about the reunion was "No." It's being held at a bar, and I'm not a bar person at all. I also didn't really feel a strong emotional pull to reconnect with the BHS Class of 2002. I blame Facebook for this--now that you can keep in touch but not really keep in touch with people, it satisfies that curiosity that we all have about people from our past. With a simple scroll thru my news feed, I can see who has recently gotten married, divorced, had a baby, changed jobs, went on vacation, or drank too much and posted regrettable pictures. No need to agonize over what to wear or even leave the house--I've officially been "reunited." Not to mention, there have been several people that have RSVP'd to the reunion who I don't remember at all. As in, I had to check my yearbook and even then didn't always recall seeing that person ever in my life. Perhaps my circle of acquaintances was even smaller than I thought.
A part of me also felt like, by going to the reunion, I would immediately become 15 again and would walk into the bar and nervously look around for someone I knew that I could sit with, or just end up sitting alone. The popular kids would regroup with one another, as would every other high school category you can think of. I guess I never really fell into any clear category, which I suppose was a good thing. I wasn't one of the "popular" kids, but I wasn't particularly unpopular. I was on friendly terms with most people, and I had a decent sized group of friends who also didn't fit into a clearly defined group. I was artistic and creative, but no so much so that I fit in with the artists. I wasn't in the marching band and I didn't play sports. I was smart and took honors classes, but I wasn't a nerd or smart enough to be considered among the "talented and gifted." I was shy and lacked confidence, as I'm sure most teenage girls deal with at some point, and in my case could have been easily misattributed to being aloof or standoff-ish. I felt afraid that the 28 year old me of today would become irrelevant to everyone at the reunion, and that all anyone would see is the person I was in high school. Not necessarily a terrible thing, but I think we can all agree that we have changed for the better since high school and we'd rather focus on that. I'm guilty of it too--I think of people I haven't seen in 10 years as the way I knew them. These people are frozen in my mind as teenagers, and in many ways so am I. A part of me would like to leave it that way.
But on the other hand, there was a part of me that wondered. Wondered what everyone was up to, looked like, acted like, in a real way that can't be conveyed the same way on Facebook. I wondered if I would regret not going, then have to wait 10 more years to get another shot. Also, a girl in my class took on the planning of this whole event with little help and fewer resources. She thought it was important and put in a lot of time and effort in making it happen--she deserves to have people show up. But most importantly, it will be, at the very least, interesting to see all these people whose 18 year old selves are imprinted in my brain have their images transformed into the people they are now--their real, adult selves.
I'm looking forward to it, but also a little apprehensive. I tend to blank out completely when I'm confronted with a question that asks me to summarize something. Is there a list out there of questions that are only allowed to be asked at family and class reunions? You know, like "so, how's married life?" or "how's work?" or "so what have you been up to the last ___ years?". Those questions make me wish I had superpowers that give me the ability to evaporate. I never know what to say; they're just too broad. So instead I just end up stumbling around and completely forgetting the past several years of my life. It's like my brain turns off the highlight reel and instead picks the most mundane topics it can grab. I can totally see someone asking me "So, what have you been up to since graduation?" and me answering something totally ridiculous like "Well, I just got a Costco membership!" or "I saw The Nutcracker downtown last Christmas!". And immediately after feeling like a total jackass and excusing myself awkwardly before any more damage can be done.
So aside from the possibility of feeling uncomfortable or saying something stupid, I am looking forward to tomorrow evening. To all of my FB friends who I haven't seen in 10 years, but who may be reading this, please come up and say "hi" tomorrow and promise to ask only specific questions that I can't screw up. I'll return the favor. :)
~Stacy
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