Reunions are funny things. There are those who dutifully attend each and every one, and there are others who would rather be thrown into a vat of boiling oil than to revisit their school days. I suppose whether or not a person chooses to attend reunions has a great deal to do with what sort of experience that person had in high school or college. Generally, I would guess, if a person had a good time "back then," he or she is much more likely to attend. And vice versa. Then there are those, no doubt, who want to go back and prove something, show everyone that they've become a wild success and have it all.
I was one of the ones who had a good time in school. In fact, I loved high school. I was involved in many activities and organizations and had the chance to know many diverse people through these avenues. As such, I was truly fortunate to have had many friends and acquaintances. High school was also the last real time in my life when things were pretty easy and carefree. As a teen, I was basically insecure and shy (I covered it up very successfully). Being able to be in high school, with the support structure of my family waiting for me at the end of every day, made life pretty much fun. It was an environment that made it easy to "come of age" and have a lot of fun doing it. When I went away to college, I was there by myself, with insecurity and shyness as my closest companions. College wasn't nearly as positive an experience for me as high school had been. And so, I look back on high school fondly.
Since my two closest friends were threatening not to attend the reunion, I wasn't sure I wanted to go alone. And so, a few weeks before the date, I put out a couple of feelers to people I'd not seen in years to see if they were going to be there. Many said they would be. Perhaps, I thought, it would be fun to be there and see these people. But still, my friend C insisted she wouldn't attend, and so I felt unsure. I wanted my old friend there to be the "escape hatch" just in case it was horrible.
In the end, C decided to go with me. And so, we attended the pre-party on Friday night. It was a casual and relaxed evening at a local bar. Did we have fun? If the fact that I went to sleep at 5:30 a.m. tells you anything, then you know the answer. We were with old friends, talking, joking, and laughing. It was as if thirty years of being apart, and thirty years of toil and trouble on our bodies, were immaterial; the passage of time felt like it had meant nothing. The next day? After just a couple of hours of sleep, I met up with some friends to sit around, share a couple of beers and laugh and talk some more. And then the night of the actual reunion party came and we all showed up excited to be there.
There were people at the reunion whom I'd known since I was a girl of four years old. They were people who'd shared in countless moments of my life, knew my grade school teachers, remembered the lecher whom we'd had for eighth grade science, and knew my parents before they'd become elderly or, as in the case of my father, had passed away. Others I'd not known until high school were there also. These were the kids I'd tasted my first beers with, gone trunk-riding with, people who remembered all the crazy capers of my teen years. These were the kids with whom I'd come of age. And it felt good to be with them.
We spent the night catching up with one another, finding out who was living where, doing what, who was married, who had divorced, which of us had kids, and who already had grandkids. And we, ourselves, spent a good portion of the night acting like kids ourselves. We went back to those carefree days in high school and laughed like none of us had mortgages, kids with problems, marital issues, or health issues. We went back and spent the night being comfortable in being with people we'd known long ago, people we didn't have to explain ourselves to, people who knew what we were, and where we came from. So many of us hadn't seen each other in thirty years, and yet we were happy to see one another, and still held dear the friendships we'd forged so many years earlier.
The night of the reunion, for me, didn't end until 3:30 am. It had been a long time since I'd had two such late nights. I was tired the next day, and it took me over a week to catch up, but it was worth every moment. I'd go back and do it again next weekend if I thought anyone was game.
I think we all found a certain degree of comfort in being with these people from our past. Many of us have continued the conversations we began that night through emails, text messages, phone conversations, and even through great jokes on our class website (some of which persist despite the threat of retribution!). We've come back together and are having a great time remembering what good friends we were back then, and how much fun we had back in the day. Some of us have re-cemented our friendships, some of us have forged newer friendships with people we might not have known well then. While I'm sure there were people there who didn't have the experience that I and most of my friends did, I think that most of us there found something of ourselves in those friendships that we treasured.
It was good to be back.