Twenty Years Ago

I think we can all agree that twenty years is a pretty long time. I think it’s a really long time, but then again, I’ve been alive for almost twice that, so maybe it’s not that long. At the end of this year, I’ve agreed to attend my 20 year high school reunion.

How and WHEN the fuck did I get HERE?

I’m not quite sure what reunion organisers did before Facebook. Did they use the white pages? Put out PSAs? In any case, I’m thankful that these days it’s as easy as creating a group on Facebook and telling people to add the classmates they’re still in touch with. It’s amazing how many people we’ve been able to find – over 180 so far! And those who aren’t on Facebook (I know, it took me a while to understand what that meant, too) have been contacted by someone who knows someone who knows them etc. It is amazing how far, wide and quickly it spread.

So while this group was set up for the actual reunion, an event taking place at the end of the year, a reunion of sorts has already started. People are sharing what they’ve been up to, memories of high school and pictures – old and new. Old crushes are being confessed. Old wounds are reopening and coming to light. People who were bullied or teased, twenty years later, are still scarred. People have changed. Or have they? We have grown, yes. But do people really change? Out of the 180 group members, there’s a handful of people who are sharing things. Many others are keeping quiet, I’m sure for many reasons. Maybe they still think they’re too cool for us? Maybe they’re just not as addicted to FB as some of us *ahem*.

One thing is for certain, physically we have all changed! My memory of high school is vague at best, but thanks to our year book, before and after comparisons have been possible and Oh. Em. Gee. I think I can say we have ALL aged well. We look so young – and we were! But now we are really in the prime of our life, aren’t we?

          

The saddest part about the reunion is learning how many of our classmates have passed away. Accidents, illness, heart attack, drugs and more than one suicide means we’ve lost 10 classmates and 3 teachers. That seems like a really high number to me.

I thought the Facebook group would make the reunion unnecessary. So much has already been shared, do we really need to catch up in person? But someone noted that it was nice to all get reacquainted prior to the reunion, as then we will be able to just hang out and have a great time and skip all the small talk. I guess time will tell if that is the case. Perhaps we’ll all just stare at each other, realise we don’t have much in common, and go our separate ways. Much like we did twenty years ago.

Have you attended a high school reunion? How did it go?

Linking up with Essentially Jess for IBOT