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Reunion

Sign #whatever of my advanced age is the fact that this year marks the 20th anniversary of my graduation from high school. It's been a couple of years now since I could legitimately say that I'd spent more of my life post rather than pre graduation, but this is one of the first times that I've reflected on such.

I'd thought about this a few times, but it didn't really sink in until I arrived in Iowa that there would be a reunion this summer for my HS graduating class. Fortunately, it won't be until the end of July, and I will be safely away. I say fortunately, mostly because learning this absolved me of any real decision-making process in the matter. I don't really want to go, but I was actually a little pleased not to have to make the decision.

There is a webpage (isn't there always?), and so I'm still debating whether to drop my URL on it. At the risk therefore of alienating or offending a potential visitor from the class of 86 at Central High, let me say that the debate is largely over whether I really want to dredge up old connections from 20 years ago. As old as all this makes me feel, the vast (vast!) majority of those 20 years was spent without any connection whatsoever to any of the people I graduated with. Despite the fairly large graduating class (close to 500, if I remember rightly), only a few of us left the state for college, and once I did, I was pretty much gone. I didn't see anyone from HS at college (which was only slightly larger than my HS), and out of sight, out of mind. You know. My yearbooks are still in a box somewhere in some basement, I guess, and I can admit a little bit of culturally-induced nostalgia--in other words, I know that reunions are Events, even though I'm not really interested.

I'm vaguely curious about perhaps 4-5 people, but I definitely have no interest in the Judgment or the Display that such Events inevitably entail. You know: Oh! What darling kids! Oh! What a wonderful job! Oh! Look at how much weight you've gained/lost/redistributed! Yeah, it's making me tired just typing that. And it's not like I'm not easily located via Google, if any of my 20-years-ago people wanted to find out what I'm up to.

Ah well. Mostly, I'm struck by the artificiality and the arbitrariness of it all. Accidents of geography and multiples of 5. If I knew for sure that Minnie Driver would be there, well, that'd be a different story...

Comments

Know where you're coming from, Collin. My high school's 20th is coming up in September (though right now the website lists it as "Event Name Not Provided"--classy). Needless to say, I won't be there, though the "culturally-induced nostalgia" has me a little curious too. Mostly about why they chose September???

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