That didn’t stop me from thinking about it, though. High School, friends, what we wanted and
where we ended up. I went to our first reunion – the 10 year reunion – and reveled
in the sense of justice that some of the cheerleaders had gained a lot of
weight. This time around, I felt a simple happiness to see so many old friends
alive and well enough to tell the tale.
Hairlines have receded, waists are perhaps a bit thicker but the smiles
look the same. I got back in touch with
my high school best friend and her sense of humor is as sharp as ever. She
still makes me laugh.
Maybe it’s because I have a child still in the throes of her
own high school experience, but I think back to all the ways I related to the
world thirty years ago and I have to say – I’m glad to be where I am right now.
Someone posted a picture from our senior year of the ‘senior table’ and while
other people reminisced about good times, I felt a shudder of remembered
unease. That table epitomized the
cliques that were present – the tribes that people belonged to. I rarely felt
that I belonged anywhere and that had nothing to do with high school but what I
had grown up with. No one in high school knew the truth about my childhood –
hell, I didn’t have the language yet to even talk about it - but I can look
back and see how those dynamics impacted my ability to figure out my place in
the world.
I bet that pretty much sums up most people’s experiences
with high school.
Now I look back with a deep sense of compassion for all of
us – all that we each were struggling and grappling with – as we confronted the
task of growing up. I can see the children that we were while making rather
adult choices around work, sex, drugs, alcohol, and our futures. We were living
our own version of ‘YOLO’ - you only
live once – and look at us: we survived.
Which is why I watched this reunion come and go...
with a
smile.
Sorry you couldn't go, but I'm glad to hear that you reconnected with some old friends in the process of planning to go. I have never been to a reunion, usually using the excuse that it is too far. I think I really haven't ever shown up because there is no one there that I'm still in contact with. I don't have good memories of high school-- I suspect that many people look back on it with a sense of relief that they made it through to the other side.
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