25 years later

Saturday night I went to a high school reunion. It was not for my class, but I was not exactly crashing, either.

Official reunions basically happen every ten years, and the way they happen is that the student government for that year uses Classic Reunions to throw it. They did a great job for my 10-year reunion, but the value had really gone down by the 20-year reunion, and since a lot of us are connected via Facebook now, many people did not even bother going. There was still a good turnout, but I could see room for improvement.

Anyway, with Facebook many people have held less formal events, and that was good, but I was invited to a 25 year reunion for the class of '89. I was class of '90 of course, and the person who invited me was someone else who was invited, not among the organizers. I was thinking I shouldn't go, but others were encouraging, and obviously I went, and I'm glad I did. There were a few things that I wanted to go over.

One thing that is worth mentioning is that I have been going through this period of seclusion, and it has just felt right. I have chosen not to attend some concerts and things that I kind of wanted to go, but I just didn't have the emotional energy for it. I do have something coming up at the end of September, so I thought one more month of seclusion would be about right. This kind of felt too early, but it worked out.

Part of that was giving up on some things, like trying to look cute. Honestly, no one seems to expect it of me anyway; there is no precedent of it happening. So one thing I saw from that is that really, no one cares how I look, and the other thing I was free to notice is that a lot of other people have social anxiety over this kind of thing too. They have varying levels of how nervous they get, but maybe no one really has time to judge each other because they are too busy worried about their own shortcomings. While that does have an upside, if we can get to where we all love and accept each other and ourselves, that would be even better.

I was amazed by the attendance. I thought of it as more of an unofficial thing, so not really something that people would travel very far for, but they did. In some cases it was combined with travel that would have happened to see family, but still, they came! And there were people that I have not seen for the entire 25 years, some of whom I am friends with on Facebook, but some of whom I did not even know were on Facebook (and some who are kind of on, but hate it). That was great.

It is an interesting experience to see a face or a name that is kind of familiar, and then the blanks fill in, and you remember waiting at the bus stop or being in the cafeteria, and all of the pieces start falling into place.

Being a year younger than the class, there were people I did not know well, or some whom I did remember but I did not expect them to remember me really, so here are some highlights and lowlights of that.

Most embarrassing moment: Jami had indicated he was coming, and so I saw him and gave a big smile and the blank look should have tipped me off, but he wasn't Jami, he was Mark. They're not exactly twins, but it wasn't that light, I don't really know Mark at all, and I have only seen Jami a couple of times. Then later when I did see Jami I assumed it was Mark again, and did not greet him right away.

Next most embarrassing moment: Dyan's husband had me going for a while that he had sat behind me for 12 years of school and I had forgotten him. This was not as bad as it could have been because he was so unfamiliar that I was trying to figure out how I could be drawing such a blank more than feeling guilty. No grudges, anyway.

Also, I feel a little disappointed that I have forgotten how to dance. I think there was a time when I was not horrible.

Pretty good moments: Just catching up. For some people it was from only about five years ago, but I spent the first part of the evening catching up with people where we didn't see each other as much in high school as in junior high, so it was kind of more than 25 years.

Really good moments: I would probably not have periods of seclusion if there were not some self-esteem issues, and maybe this was more noticeable because I was the younger class, and there is some age stratification in high school, but it's kind of amazing that people remembered me and cared. It's the easiest thing to feel invisible when you are a teenager (except for those moments when you have done something humiliating, and you feel too visible), but really, we have no idea of our place in this word.

Best moment: I managed sport teams, and three of my basketball players and one of my soccer players were there, and their hugs were good, but seeing them hug each other so hard was something else entirely. It did bring back memories, but even more than that, seeing in the here and now that all of that teamwork and camaraderie still had a pulled them together. It's not that we have all stayed in touch, and there are a lot of miles between, but there is love too. I'm glad I got to see that.

So thanks for organizing Meredith, Greg, Chris, Diana, and Corey. You did a good thing.

I will be incorporating the music from that night into my band reviews for the week. Otherwise, I just need to reflect on possibilities for the class of '90's 25th.