The Reunion

It is indeed ironic that we spend our school days yearning to graduate and our remaining days waxing nostalgic about our school days. ~Isabel Waxman

And so I went. Of course it wasn't as simple as all that....

Yesterday my phone rang about 8:00, and Mom and Dad decided that they wanted to go in for an early breakfast in town as family eat-together-thing. I managed to get my sleep-deprived brain together since I'd gone to bed some time after 2:00 am, and got up and dressed. We went in, forded the masses at Cracker Barrel, and had the traditional log-rolling breakfast. All meals at Cracker Barrel will enable you to roll logs, after all.

When I got home, I let Roux and Yelldo out and started working on cleaning out my closet. About 5, when it was time to get ready for the reunion, there was still no sign of Roux. I went out looking for her and thought I heard her yelping in the woods. This prompted a massive 45 minute search in the deep woods, hills, and hollows behind my house. She eventually came up covered in mud but otherwise okay, and I came back to the house with a sore knee and very little time to get ready for the reunion.

I did get ready and go, though. It was really good. Only a small portion of our class was there. We were a really small class to start with, and I know there were a lot of people who had other big obligations this weekend and couldn't make it. There were some people who I was really hoping were going to come but didn't, and there were people there who I haven't seen since graduation. There were a couple of surreal moments, as I suppose is to be expected, but on the whole I think for a class that graduated quite literally in the middle of a thunderstorm, we managed to escape without any damage.

It was wonderful to see everyone and also to meet everyone's spouses. To me, it was as nice to see who everyone finally wound up with as it was to see them personally again. It was sort of like seeing finished paintings, if that makes any sense.

It also astonished me how much we all still looked like us. I don't know why that was a surprise, but it was a bit. I mean, I look in my own mirror at least when it can't be avoided, and I know that face hasn't altered that much over the years, but I guess I thought for some reason 15 years would make us look different. It really didn't. Maybe we were getting a little gray in the hair or a couple of little lines. Maybe we were a little more...um...curvy... than we used to be in some cases (okay, my case), and certainly some of our guys had come into their own since graduation, always to be expected since teenage girls usually have it mostly together while their male counterparts usually still have quite a ways to go yet, but nobody was radically different.

I also enjoyed talking with everyone and finding out what everybody was doing. We have really high number of teachers in our class. I wonder what conjunction of stars reigned over the year of our birth that caused that curse to befall us all.... I was so proud to hear what everybody was doing. We have small business owners, professionals, people who have incredible talents and skills, and all from our one little class.

The whole time I was there, I was viewing the reunion through dual lenses, those of a member of my senior class and those of a senior class teacher. I kept thinking of my seniors, the ones I've taught already and the ones who are upcoming, and seeing bits and pieces of them in the faces and situations that surrounded me. It was an odd sort of duality. I wish for all my darlings the kind of connection we still have after fifteen years.

I don't know if we'll do a reunion at twenty. I hope so, and I hope that even more of our far-flung classmates will come. If I can come to one and survive it, I think anybody could.