High School Reunion

I attended our 30th high school reunion on Saturday. The last reunion I had attended was our 5th year reunion and I had not seen many of my classmates since. As I pulled up to the location and saw people going in my first reaction was "Wow! Who are all these middle-aged people?"

I met a good friend of mine there and the first 30 minutes or so everyone spent in trying to figure out who was who. My friend told me; "We haven't changed a bit but some of them have really aged!" I guess our mirrors show us what we want to see and not what is really there. I do believe though that the guys had changed (aged) more than the women, but maybe they just don't try to cover it up like women do. I was really amused to see that the guys that had the long shoulder-length flowing locks that they were so proud of in high school turned out to be pretty much bald! Actually most of the men were bald or balding and what hair they had was grey. There were very few men that still retained a full head of hair. To me most of the women still looked the same, yes they had aged some and most (including myself) had put on a few pounds since high school but in the face they still looked the same as they did then. The ones I did not recognize were ones that had completely changed their hair color and that made it difficult for me.

I felt kind of out-of-place but I am glad I went. It was nice to see my classmates again, although many of the ones I was close friends with then did not attend the reunion. It was also nice to see that the old "cliques" were no more. The ones that we considered snobby while in high school because they did not associate with us were very friendly and spent a lot of time laughing and talking with us at the reunion. It was good to catch up and share news with each other and see what everyone was up to. Of course jobs, marriages, children and even grand-children were discussed and pictures were shown off. People made jokes about the tough times they had been through and was able to share some laughs about it, and as always when middle-aged (can I really be middle-aged?) people get together their diseases, surgeries, and ailments as well as prescriptions were discussed.

We remembered lost classmates and our class felt very fortunate to have only lost three (that we know of) with one of those in elementary school due to an accident. The other two were lost due to cancer, and news was shared of a classmate that is currently battling that loathsome disease and seems to be losing the battle.

Games were played, laughs and fellowship was shared, friendships renewed, contact information exchanged and promises were made to keep in touch, but most of us will probably get busy with our own lives again until we attend the next reunion where we will all look a little older and go through it all again!