Oh, Sweet Reunion
Monday, October 15, 200710 years.
TEN YEARS, MAN!
*Jeremy Piven did it much better as 'Paul' in Grosse Pointe Blank.
What movies and friends fail to tell you about attending your 10 year High School Reunion is that people swell. That's right, folks were all swolt up. I of course am as svelte now as I was then and I would have worn my favorite jeans from HS as a throw-back were it not for the little people sneaking into my closet to take them in and then dry them with high heat. . . I'm just sayin'. I believe this happens when I sleep.
So, I kept looking for excuses not to go.
Oh no, the cat puked. I better stay home.
-Seriously, when do the furry shit-bags NOT puke?
Uh-oh, I'm low on gas. I'll never make it.
-Living in the ghetto provides a gas station and dollar store on every corner.
I don't have anything to wear.
-The LP's have seriously shrunk all my clothes, this is legit!
So, the excuses were many and lame. I had run out of them and was tired of this game when the time came to go so I spent my 30 minutes straightening this mane of hair and off I go.
I was waiting to pay and enter and I'm standing next to some guy that looked familiar.
"Hey, you look familiar. Did we go to high school together?"
I thought it was funny.. . . because see, we were both there for a reunion. I should've saved that line for someone that would have got it.
Anyway. I mix, I mingle, I talk to the same folks I talked to then and a few that I didn't because as adults we're more civil and less standoffish. Less because we have abandoned our ties to 'cliches' and peers of the same social standing but, because you don't know how the ranks have changed since you're no longer judged by your ability to be cheerleader/jock/band-nerd. I actually heard someone say that, "you never know who really turned out to be successful, ya know?!?" All the more reason to fain nice because that scrawny guy you picked on in Algebra works for Apple and decided that the new nano would look better in that shade of bullshit. . . .
Many were partnered/coupled/married. Many had babies, a few were 'in the family way.'
I'm sitting near the bar and I'm chatty with this one girl and she's a hair stylist, just had her second baby- I mention that I'm really tempted to tell folks that I've suffered a brain injury because without the name tag- I don't remember who I did or (more importantly) did not like.
She "heh's" and says, "yeah, I remember you were snobby."
yeah. . . wait! What? Really?
As quickly as I could think it but not as quickly NOT say it- I reply with. . .
"Well, that's odd. If I was snotty to you, you must have been a bitch. So, let's just call it even and get a drink!"
Laughter ensues and drinking follows.
I later realize that was a risk but we both seemed to get a kick out of ourselves and our adult honesty.
I really thought that going would be yet another exercise in feeling like I haven't done enough or a reminder that everyone is happier with where they are in life and I'm still the crazy activist looking for the next big movement to feel like I'm apart of something. I thought that this was the time that you had seen, done, heard, medicated, and figured out the course. It's not.
It just is.
Having or being without children doesn't mean that you have the answers.
Having a great career or a shitty job means that you are paying rent.
Having a loving partner or a bitter divorce means that heartburn is universal.
I have- if nothing, figured out that even those that seem to have 'figured it out' are just as swollen as the rest of us.
Yeah, we're all swell.
Anyway. I mix, I mingle, I talk to the same folks I talked to then and a few that I didn't because as adults we're more civil and less standoffish. Less because we have abandoned our ties to 'cliches' and peers of the same social standing but, because you don't know how the ranks have changed since you're no longer judged by your ability to be cheerleader/jock/band-nerd. I actually heard someone say that, "you never know who really turned out to be successful, ya know?!?" All the more reason to fain nice because that scrawny guy you picked on in Algebra works for Apple and decided that the new nano would look better in that shade of bullshit. . . .
Many were partnered/coupled/married. Many had babies, a few were 'in the family way.'
I'm sitting near the bar and I'm chatty with this one girl and she's a hair stylist, just had her second baby- I mention that I'm really tempted to tell folks that I've suffered a brain injury because without the name tag- I don't remember who I did or (more importantly) did not like.
She "heh's" and says, "yeah, I remember you were snobby."
yeah. . . wait! What? Really?
As quickly as I could think it but not as quickly NOT say it- I reply with. . .
"Well, that's odd. If I was snotty to you, you must have been a bitch. So, let's just call it even and get a drink!"
Laughter ensues and drinking follows.
I later realize that was a risk but we both seemed to get a kick out of ourselves and our adult honesty.
I really thought that going would be yet another exercise in feeling like I haven't done enough or a reminder that everyone is happier with where they are in life and I'm still the crazy activist looking for the next big movement to feel like I'm apart of something. I thought that this was the time that you had seen, done, heard, medicated, and figured out the course. It's not.
It just is.
Having or being without children doesn't mean that you have the answers.
Having a great career or a shitty job means that you are paying rent.
Having a loving partner or a bitter divorce means that heartburn is universal.
I have- if nothing, figured out that even those that seem to have 'figured it out' are just as swollen as the rest of us.
Yeah, we're all swell.
