I got an e-mail the other day. A high school classmate of mine posted a message to my Facebook page – my high school is holding a reunion in May.
This year will be 20 years since I graduated from the Catholic high school that I have only visited a handful of times since I left. That’s even though the school is less than 10 blocks from my house.
I suppose I’ll have to visit again, since the reunion will be held in the high school gym. That’s if I decide to go.
Don’t get me wrong, I really don’t have a problem with reunions. I went to a reunion for a different class in high school last year in Lincoln Park in Jersey City and took pictures of the sparsely attended affair. It was supposed to become a newspaper story of some kind, but between writer’s block and my current reporting gig, it just never happened.
Or maybe it was something else – memories of yesteryear and dread of the here and now.
My high school was not a bad place when I went there. I was in the first class that accepted girls so there was a plus. I graduated sixth in my class, became a good distance runner, and found a safe haven to grow as a student and as a person.
Yet there are the things I didn’t attain that bother me even now. I never got to go out with my four-year crush, was not the most popular kid in class (I sat alone at lunch out of shyness and protection) and was not the top dog when it came to the things that mattered to me (school ranking and long distance running).
Do I sound trivial, self-absorbed and self-pitying? Yes, no … well too bad, I’m just getting started.
Twenty years later, if I attend the reunion, people will be getting a good look at me, and what will they see?
Answer: A guy pushing 40 with prematurely graying hair, carrying a potbelly, still wearing glasses, without wife and children, working a dead-end job and living at home. Quite a resume, huh?
Yeah, I know that old saw, “Who cares what people think?” That’s true, well, not really. One thing about meeting people who you haven’t seen in a long time is you’ll get the inevitable query, “How are you doing?”
The best tactic to avoid giving any in-depth revelation is saying “OK” and then turning the question on them. I’m almost afraid to hear what will be said next – that they married their high school sweetheart and have two children on their way to college, just purchased a summer home to go with the condo/McMansion they’re currently living in, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Sounds like a totally unrealistic scenario, but one that could possibly happen, and one that I would like to avoid at all costs.
You see, reunions are not just about old friends finding each other to reminiscence about the good old days. They are also opportunities to measure the successes and failures of your life against someone else’s, and vice versa.
In short, I would go to an upcoming reunion if one of the following situations existed: If I was 18 again, a student ambassador getting to meet graduates and learning from their wisdom and mistakes to help me move on to a better life, or if I can go as my current self, and hope to meet up with people who are as trivial, self-absorbed, and self-pitying as I am.
Maybe I’ll answer that e-mail. Maybe. – Ricardo Kaulessar
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