I am gripped by a powerful fury at the moment, so I am going to try to write something positive. Although, I do find it ironic that I’m writing about a relived high school experience a the very moment that that is what is infuriating me about the world at the moment.
I recently went to my 20th high school reunion. I took Harlan with me, but left the other boys home since they had school and are a bit easier to manage that the little guy, who seems to be deep in the grips of separation anxiety. He works very hard to go to preschool and enjoy himself, but he always checks with me that I’m coming back to pick him up. We had a pretty good flight, but he didn’t nap, so that set him up for exhaustion on the day I arrived.
My parents swept Harlan off for a walk when I arrived, and I sat down and reviewed my yearbook, almost as if I were studying for an exam, which I kind of was. My friend and her husband picked me up and, while we weren’t the first to arrive, we were pretty close to it. Haha. I steeled myself for my goal, which was to listen to as many people as possible and find out what they were doing now. It was fun! There were probably 60 people from my class there (out of a class of 175), and I managed to catch up with 25 of them. I had to leave when they turned the music up too loud, and I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying.
My takeaway: it’s pretty nice not being on Facebook. I was able to really enjoy hearing about people’s experiences without there being any expectation that I already knew what they were going to say. It was so fun to watch their faces click into my memory. I wasn’t popular in high school, but because I went to that district from Kindergarten to 12th grade, I had met nearly everyone in my class at some point in our school years. Therefore, I didn’t feel like I couldn’t talk to any of them, because I already had in the past. Now, there were a lot of people that I was super glad I’d looked at the yearbook prior to going…
Also, when dinner was served, most people sat with the same people they used to sit with in the cafeteria!
Bottom line: If you can go and listen and let go of expectations, a high school reunion is super fun! I recommend it.
Academic Leigh Speaking 