My 20 year high school reunion is this weekend.
Those are some of the scariest words in any language.
When I turned 30, I was excited. I felt like I was finally old enough where people would take me seriously. Turning 30 gave me a new sense of confidence, as if I had finally arrived at true adulthood after years of trying to figure out if I was a grown up or still a kid. Now that 40 is right around the corner, I must admit my thinking is more along the lines of, “Wait…I’m going to be how old?!?!”
I’ve been thinking about high school, and the time that has passed since graduation, a lot recently. We are not heading back to Kansas City this weekend for the reunion. For years I said there was no way I would go. While I enjoyed my ten year reunion, I was disappointed that a lot of people I wanted to see and catch-up with did not attend. I guess I figured I still kept in touch with the people I cared about and had an interest in what they were doing, so why bother going back for a cliched night of asking people how they’re doing, reliving dumb things we did in middle school, etc.?
But that changed over the spring and we tentatively decided to head back. When plans changed, I started to get kind of excited about the event. Some of the people who I was in regular contact with 10 years ago have drifted away, and I was eager to reconnect with them. I realized that for every awkward conversation, there would probably be 2-3 good ones. And the night was sure to be full of crazy stories we could talk about afterwards.
A variety of factors made traveling this weekend extremely difficult, though, and we agreed it wasn’t worth it to fly in on Saturday afternoon and then need to be back at the airport first thing Sunday morning. Again my feelings about the reunion are mixed. Based on some of the Facebook connections I’ve made in recent months, there was a group of people I was very interested to catch-up with. And then there were people I was dreading talking to, the people I didn’t know in high school but suddenly wanted to be my Facebook friends. And there’s a part of me that thinks these awkward moments are an important part of growing up and I’ll be missing something by not being there.
The good news (for my Kansas City readers) is that in place of a rushed trip this weekend, we are working to bring the whole family back in October, while the big sisters are on fall break. We’ll keep you all updated as that gets closer, but we hope to have more time to hang out with everyone then, reintroduce you to M. and C., and introduce you to L. for the first time (for most of you).
I may have to dig into my boxes of cassette tapes and play a few fine selections from 1989 this weekend.