So I don’t know how many of you out in Cyberville, USA are reading this, but if you are, did you care about your high school reunion?
I’m really not someone who cares about all that, but somehow, I’ve gotten myself right in the middle of planning/contacting about the whole dern thing!
I’m planning on going, even though Paco can’t go, but for what, really? to confirm that i must still care, on some level, about what folks from high school think about me? to reconnect with people that i would have probably not lost contact with if we had needed to stay friends? to pat myself on the back for not turning out like someone else did?
i don’t think that these are my sole reasons for going, i am honestly curious, nostalgic, and feel obligated to go, but am jealous of the people that are impenetrable on the list, those of the folks that are just so dang happy they can’t stand it, whether their living in Gerton, NC with they’re three kids and husband or whether they’re floating around Africa, serving in the peace corps…
I know it’s stupid to even care about, but are people going to even like me now? I mean, back then, I listened to Rush Limbaugh for my intellectual fodder, NOT Noam Chomsky. I was religious then and really preachy. Now, I’m spiritual, but not religious at all, and have gone a complete 180 on the things I used to be “preachy” about to begin with! I don’t look like, dress like, or talk like I did then. Hell, I don’t even think like I did then! (Thank goodness…)
So why do I feel so bound to go? How many times will I have to explain my degree, my career path? How many times will I have to explain my life choices? My politics?
Or, am I just too hopeful that we’ll have real conversation? Won’t we probably talk about how many of us are fat now, or bald now, or who was funny back then, or easy, or mean, and what teachers we liked, and how goofy this or that was…
I suppose I’ll just have to cope. But I swear, I hope that I can have some stimulating and interesting conversation there… I hope it’s not all about “ohmigod, things have changed so much!”
