High School Reunions. Have you ever gone to any of yours?
High school was not the highlight of my life. For a long time, I didn't.
After never going to one of my other reunions, I signed up for my 50th high school reunion. It was supposed to be held in June of 2020. Guess what didn't happen and why. I'm not even sure it was ever held when the pandemic moderated.
Last week, I was invited to an "all years" alumni day this June to celebrate the 85th anniversary of my high school in New York City. I've decided to go, especially as I can bring a couple of guests besides my spouse. It will be held at my high school in the daytime, which is what interests me. No dressing up. No dancing.
The invite brought back memories of the one reunion I ever went to - my
husband's 40th (more on that in a few sentences). Now, we are in our
70s.
His 50th reunion never happened, either, due to COVID. So here we are.
I originally wrote this post on October 16, 2010. Today, I rerun it, including some editing I did when I reran it in October of 2019. I called it "Forever Young 2020". I wonder, what if I had known what the future would bring when I wrote this in 2010 and republished it in 2019?
From October 2010 with edits
The Dancing Queen. No longer 17.
The administrator for a children's hospital on the West Coast. The
merger and acquisitions lawyer up from Washington DC. The school
psychologist practicing in Virginia. The financial consultant. The
grandmother of three fresh from a trip to Hawaii. The produce clerk.
The man taking constant phone calls because his father was in the
hospital, a thousand miles away.
What did we all have in common? Six hours of dancing, talking, sharing email addresses, and looking at old photos.
A 40th high school reunion.
Not mine, but my husband's. One of his friends organized it. Before
last night I had only met one of these people, and to my amazement, I
recognized him the minute I saw him. My husband was already in college
when I met him so this was a part of his life that I was never able to
share.
Until now.
There was the woman who, surveying the room, said to me "This is
surreal". Yes it was and I bet everyone who goes to a reunion
(especially the 30th, the 40th, and beyond) thinks the same thing. When
you age, the people you knew in your childhood (if you don't see them
as adults) are frozen in time. The people you went to high school with
are, in your mind, forever 17 and 18. Even if they are really 58 or 60.
Until you go to the reunion, that is, and this is the surreal part. You
walk into the room and see a bunch of middle aged people just like
you. Some look like their yearbook photos. Many do not. Many of us
grey, all of us wrinkled, some of us in shape, others not so much. Some
of us have achieved great things. Some have lived the lives they had
planned to live but for many of us our lives have taken many unexpected
directions. Some good, some not.
We are older, wiser. We accept the class clown, we reminisce about old
antics, we laugh with and hug the classmate who had too much to drink
and is now trying to cry on everyone's shoulder. We know this moment
isn't going to be forever. We know when we have the next reunion we
will be near 70. Maybe we should have these more often.
Will we do that?
Or will we be reabsorbed into our daily lives? Only time will tell (I said back then) - and time did tell, didn't it.
But for that one night we were....forever young.
I have never been to a reunion of any kind and have no plans to do so. The only one I can remember actually receiving notice of was a high school reunion, but since by then I lived thousands of kilometres away it would have been an expensive trip to connect with people I no longer knew and would probably not recognize.
ReplyDelete...I went to a couple of mine, never again.
ReplyDeleteNo, never been. Not interested. Besides the fact an "invitation" only came once (my mother lived at the same address until I was in my 50's, so they knew where to mail them), I had seen online photos of past reunions, and they were attended by no one I'd bother seeing again. There were very distinct cliques, and only members of certain ones attended the reunions. No thanks. I didn't associate with them then, why would I want to see them now?
ReplyDeleteNow you're making me rethink not having gone to any of mine. I always felt there was no need, anyone I cared to see, I did. But now I wonder about seeing some of the others.
ReplyDeleteThese wild parties got me into troubles when I was younger. Reunions end up being quite awkward too. Good old friends stayed connected without these reunions
ReplyDeleteI haven’t gone to any of my reunions, either. High school was not my best time.
ReplyDeleteI will never go to my high school reunions. The 2nd semester of my senior year is best forgotten, and I have too many ill feelings towards those idiots to ever consider seeing them again.
ReplyDeleteI'll probably never go to a reunion either. I didn't technically graduate, since I earned the GED on winter break and went from grade eleven to college. In high school my friends and classmates graduated at the end of that last half-year of mine. I was not invited to that reunion. I was invited to the one with people who *started* the same year I did, who were in my classes in *grade* school, which I don't particularly want to remember. The official people-in-charge of the reunion for the classmates who shared my good times have rejected me from that group, boohoohoodles. :-)
ReplyDelete