Knowing that I have a 20 year high school reunion coming up this Fall causes quite a pause in my thoughts. In one way, all those school experiences seem a lifetime ago, not just twenty years. But it also feels like I myself (thoughts, soul, spirit) have not changed.
I was not part of the popular crowd back then - it was a private school and I had been away in public school for 3 years, and I was new to the already-formed cliques of 9th grade. But I found a core of great friends (one whom I had attended elementary school with) and I had a great time cultivating deep relationships rather than many superficial ones. I also had the advantage that first year of having a brother who was a senior and I got to know a lot of his friends as well. But even so, our class was relatively small, and the school itself small and distinct, so we were quite a clan even though we had our internal pecking order. I understand that this is almost a universal high school experience. I also was dealing with quite a severe case of insecurity because of the damaging blow to my family of my father leaving.
I screwed up my courage to attend my 10th year reunion simply because I thought it would be good to re-introduce my adult self to old friends and other classmates. What I found suprised me.
1. I expected everyone to look the same. I didn't know that I had that expectation beforehand, but at the reunion I found myself saying "why, that doesn't look like so and so at all!" I can't explain why I even had that reaction, or the expectation for people to be unchanged. I knew from looking in the mirror that I had changed, myself. I just hadn't expected everyone else to have, either.
2. After the initial greetings, everyone gravitated to the exact same cliques they had had in high school. I was amazed. I really did naievely believe that we would meet each other anew, learning who we had all turned into as young adults. I felt that I was a completely different person in the sense of security, but somehow walking into that cheesy hotel room alone - these people were somehow able to make me feel like the high school outsider all over again. I was a workaholic success at this point in my life - I made grown computer engineers cry with the strictness of an executive demanding perfection (thankfully I've evolved past that stage!). And yet in this crowd, I was reduced to an insecure single gal, fussing that maybe my dress made me look heavier than I was, or that my hair wouldn't lay right, or any other myriad things I could blame for making everyone react in the same old way to me. It most likely was my capitulation and immediate posture change that projected my interior angst. I also was chiding myself the whole time for even caring what these people thought of me.
3. Some people were exactly the same - completely unchanged. This amazed me too - how could they have gone through ten years of life and not changed a bit? Or did the same thing happen to them upon entering the ballroom?? Or were they just so integrated as a person already in high school, already set, jelled, so to speak? My path was different - I didn't really 'come into my own' until I was 30.
4. The one highlight was getting to visit with three people in particular. One was a boy that I had known since kindergarden. We were able to talk like adults - I quizzed him about his life, and was so proud for him all the things that he had accomplished, experienced, and shared. Another was one of my best girlfriends - I had always appreciated her grace and sophistication and she was just the same and enjoying being a wife and mother. She made me feel right at home. The last and probably most important was a guy that I had had an amazingly deep tortured crush on, and he had had a hard row in high school and was largely misunderstood (especially by myself). I had wronged him then, and I was especially keen to make sure that he knew how sorry I was and how glad I was for him that all that was past, and that his life was going great guns. At least I hoped it was, and that we all weren't just lying to each other to get through the weekend.
So, now I have a whole new story personally - it's been a new chapter for me for the last 5 years. A man I had known peripherally for years (partly because he lived in another state) began an spirit-led pursuit of me in 2003, and he persevered until I came to trust him and we married in 2004. We thoroughly enjoyed 5 years of marriage when we were blessed with the arrival of our first child this past year. My husband enjoys a deep sense of self, and therefore unquenchable confidence, and that has freed me in so many ways being around him. As such, he cannot imagine why I would even hesitate to go to a high school reunion. It's not that I don't want to go, it's just that it's so weird! It's so weird to go to this alternate reality that is a reunion of people that haven't talked to each other in 10 years since the last weird hurried reunion meeting. And knowing that people that were not my friends (or even friendly) then are trying to friend me on Facebook doesn't really make sense to me either. I decided early on that if I was going to do the FB thing, then I would only be cyber friends with people I am friends with in real life. I may be changing my mind on that one, but that's my protectionist stance currently. Also, anyone would have to be a real good friend to survive the barrage of baby pictures 24/7!
It's not that I expect us all to sing kumbeya or anything, it's just that I guess I expect more depth and I guess I deeply believe that that's impossible in such an artificial environment of high school egos trying to prove themselves to other high school egos. When, really, we don't have to! Why do we have to prove ourselves? We are who we are. I'm hoping that maybe we've all gotten so old (!) that it doesn't matter anymore.
