I went to my high school class reunion last night. It was our “20+1” year reunion, since we were supposed to meet last year but COVID kiboshed that plan. To be honest, I don’t really know if we should have met this year as we did (in the basement party room of a bar), but it’s done now. And I enjoyed it–I really did. But it’s sort of a fascinating experience–almost like a small sociological study.
From my perspective, nobody has really changed all that much. Of course we’re older. At about forty, we’re definitely in that middle-aged bracket now, but it really doesn’t feel like it. Someone mentioned last night that they don’t think we look that old, and I agree–honestly, I think the majority of us look a lot like we did when we graduated from high school twenty (+one) years ago. Maybe we’ve filled out a little, we’re starting to get noticeable amounts of gray hair, some have grown facial hair where they couldn’t before, and we might be starting to get crow’s feet and forehead wrinkles (I’m mostly talking about myself here, except for the facial hair…although I do have a hair or two that have started appearing on my chin…).
Personalities were quite similar too. Based on my observations, there were some who partied and did shots, there was a group that kept going outside to smoke, there were some who mostly just talked to the people they already keep in contact with, and then there were some like me–wandering around and connecting with different people, catching up on what each person was keeping busy with (that we didn’t already know from Facebook) and trying to have some meaningful conversation over the sound of the band upstairs. Of course there were also some doing a combination of all of those things. Again–much like high school.
I guess I don’t have a lot of interesting things to say about the reunion except that for some reason, when I was a kid, I expected that when people became adults they acted differently than they used to. Like, at some point in life, we would all just acquiesce in becoming grownups who, for the most part, have things figured out. Sweet, sheltered younger me didn’t realize until I was probably at least in college that chronological adults don’t magically transform into responsible humans who just know all the answers at some predetermined age.
For the most part, we are who we were–especially when we’re around people we spent time with in the past. That’s not to say that we haven’t grown and matured in the last two decades, just that most of us are probably slightly evolved versions of our younger selves. And that’s okay. We all have the capacity to change, of course, but that doesn’t mean we will or even that we should. I guess I don’t have a moral for this story…just some musings prompted by a night in a bar basement with a bunch of people, most of whom I haven’t seen in person in at least a decade. What an interesting tradition reunions are…
growingmoxie.com 