Honestly, I can't remember which side of the fence I started on in my great decision of whether to go or not to go to my class reunion.
Fact: I have never attended a high school class reunion before.
I was actually aware of my tenth reunion prior to the event. My mom was working with a guy I'd gone to school with. He got an invitation or information packet which included a "Where Are They?" list of names. My name was on the list and, since he recognized my mom's last name as my maiden name, he asked if she knew anything about my whereabouts. She claimed me as her daughter (thanks, Mom!) and got a copy of the info. for me.
Around that same time, my best friend ran into one of our former classmates at a gas station. It so happened that this former classmate was on the reunion committee (or whatever it's called) and, as my friend was also among the missing, she was given similar information regarding who to contact, what was happening when, etc.
We put our heads together and hashed out whether we should attend. She said she would go if I would go and I said I would go if she would go. She didn't want to go because she had actually dropped out in our junior year. I didn't want to go because I had recently left my first husband and didn't want to make an appearance without a man on my arm. I wasn't far enough removed from my high school self and felt like everyone would just see the same old loser I'd been back then, no husband, no boyfriend. . . I think we ended up ordering pizza and watching movies instead.
The one and only reason I regret not making it to my ten year reunion is that I actually looked better then than I had in high school. I had finally made (temporary) peace with my hair and - while I was an awkward, clumsy, skinny kid during my school days, I was pretty much HAPPY with my body when I was 28. I had gained about forty pounds during my marriage, then lost it all plus after we split up. Then I discovered working out (it was the 80's, after all!). So, in retrospect, I could have been the hot, single chick at that reunion. Or at least the hottest I personally have ever been! I had no idea that in just a few short years, pregnancy, childbirth, quitting smoking, fast food and lack of exercise would send my body to hell in a handbasket.
I was completely unaware of my twentieth reunion and I'm assuming there was a twenty-fifth, but not really sure. Maybe there was even a fifteenth. . .I don't know if they do those but, if they did, I would have been done with my second husband already and deep in mommyhood at the time.
I kind of had my thirtieth reunion on the back burner of my mind as the one I might attend. Right around the time of my tenth class reunion, I had a conversation with a client who had lost quite a bit of weight in anticipation of her own thirtieth reunion. The first time I saw her after she got back to town, I asked her about it. She said it had actually been really fun. She went on to tell me that all of the reunions leading up to this one had kind of been just like going back to school; the same cliques hung out together and people tended to be just as critical and catty as they had always been. By the time of the thirtieth reunion, though, people seemed to have changed. Some of them had grown children, they'd gone through divorces, lost jobs, bought houses, buried loved ones, had grandchildren, filed for bankruptcy. . . Pretty much everyone had experienced great joy and great sorrow. It was like they were on a more even playing field - like it didn't matter as much who had been a cheerleader or who had been a stoner, a jock, a geek, a brain or a loser. . .now they were all just people who had gone to school together and were maybe genuinely a little happy to see each other. That sounded really good to me - and I never forgot it.
Fast forward twenty more years - seriously! How fast that twenty years went. And I was confronted with that thirtieth reunion that had been simmering on the back burner.
Fact: We already know that I did NOT go. And, because I can only allow myself so much time per day for this blog, I guess the process of how I reached that decision will have to wait. . .
Until tomorrow -
Goody
