Class Reunion

I am one of the few people I know who has never attended a high school class reunion. I can say with confidence that I probably never will. So many of us experienced such conflicting feelings of pleasure and despair in our high school years that it’s hard to believe that one would want to bring back those memories and feelings.

But years – or decades – later, would they really come back, or would seeing the people that you spent four of the most intense years of your life with only bring perspective? After all, they have become different people just like I have, with whole lives of accomplishment and growth so far beyond those seminal years. And yet we all still cling to them as one of the most defining times of our lives. Or maybe we don’t cling to them. Maybe they cling to us.

Many people had the idyllic teen years of cheerleading, homecoming, sports, dances … others experienced the fringes of arts and sciences, with no interest in sports and the social scene. All of us felt a little Catcher in the Rye at times, no doubt. All of us have grown up, had jobs, achieved some aspirations, failed at others, maintained relationships, traveled, built up new priorities, left old ones behind … as different as we were then we are all even more different now. And in that, have more in common than we ever did.

I gotta say – I’ve held up ok for my age. But I have a fantasy in my head that I still look a certain way and a certain age. If I saw old classmates of my same age face-to-face with clear evidence of how much time had passed, I would know how old I really am. Not that I don’t know, chronologically. I mean, it would drive home like a stake through my heart how much time had passed where I had not accomplished all I had dreamed of doing while staring out the window in freshman geometry. I don’t think I want that reminder.

Hearing former classmates talk about their children would remind me that I had forgotten to have some of my own. I guess you can’t always get everything on your to-do list done. Some stuff just slips by the wayside. I wonder what other things would crop up that I would realize I’d forgotten to do.

A visit to the prison-like brick building actually surrounded by a moat (the city’s canal) would likely give me a case of delirium tremens. The smelly gym with the sadistic gym teachers and communal showers. The basketball court – the scene of innumerable hideous pep rallies . (This was pre-Title 9 and sports were almost exclusively “for boys only.” Pep rallies had the air of sending our knights or gladiators out to battle while we girls waved our lace hankies in farewell.) The choir room, the classrooms, the lockers. All the places where many a Greek tragedy or comedy (complete with the chorus) played itself out. All looking so much smaller and pathetically less significant. And yet still wielding so much power.

I am making it sound like I had marginalized myself during my high school years. I was actually in the thick of almost everything. Committees, plays, speech competitions, honor roll, choir, yearbook, powder-puff football, Girls’ State … . But it was almost like I was a separate person watching myself doing those things. Playing the game while my psyche stood by and observed . This was just something to get through, to survive, so I could get on to the next and more exciting thing. Preferably where no one knew me and I could start over completely fresh and invent myself anew without all the baggage of spending 12 years in one public school system where everyone knew everyone else and left no room for anyone to play a different role than the one already assigned . All in stone. For eternity.

If I go back, I am that person again. The one who wasn’t herself. The one who was too scared to be herself in case she wouldn’t fit in. Or … maybe I should just get over myself already!!!

DTBF!

Patti

Photo: Romy and Michele's High School Reunion, 1997