Reunion.
n. (1) A gathering of the members of a group who have been separated: a high school reunion. (2) A meeting or social gathering of persons acquainted with each other through some former event or connection.
Reunion. A word I have been both dreading and/or looking forward to for the past 6 months. Step back to 1980. Big bangs. Legwarmers. The death of disco. The year the USA Hockey team beat the Russians and won the olympic gold. It was also the year I graduated from
Blackfoot High School. Home of the
Broncos. The reason I have a fondness for
kelly green. Now hop forward to 2010. Thirty years
after I graduated from
Blackfoot High School. Time to 'gather with the members of my group who have been separated.' Time to attend a 'social gathering of persons acquainted with each other through some event of connection.' High School Reunion. I went to mine on Saturday. Prior to 7:00 on July 17th, I spent a lot of time agonizing.
"What should I wear?" "Why didn't I lose those 30 pounds I've been dragging around for years?" "Will anyone recognize me?" "Will it be worth the internal anxieties I experience until I walk through that door and see my old classmates?" Here are the answers to most of those questions. Yes. I did find something to wear. No, I didn't lose the 30 pounds. Maybe by the next reunion. But so what? People DID recognize me. And I recognized people. And yes. It was worth it. My first crush was there. My first kiss was there. The first person to break my heart was also there. (No, they weren't the same person.) My best girlfriends were there. These were the girls I laughed with and marched in drill team with and cried with over those first kisses and crushes.
I have quite an impressive graduating class. Custom furniture designers. Mayo clinic doctors. Teachers and lawyers and bankers and farmers. One classmate
used to be a Chippendale dancer. One class mate looks like Charlie Sheen. One classmate even looks like a bad version of David Hasselhoff. One classmate is in a band and runs a river rafting business. We still have a prom king and a drama queen. And we have made it in the real world. We spent the evening catching up. There was a little bragging, a lot of laughing, and even more remembering and re-visiting. It was
great fun. Our reunion brought about another type of connection. Re-connection. We promised to keep in touch more, send Christmas cards and wedding announcements, and call from time to time just to see how 'we are doing.' Some of us even committed to
really losing those 30 pounds before the next reunion. We'll see. In the meantime, I'll just say, "There's no such thing as the real world, just a lie that you rise above." And yes, 30 years later, 'Some things are better on the other side."
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