Reunions

When we were in California, I was lucky enough to go out to dinner with Pete, a fellow blogger and friend from high school. I hadn’t seen Pete since graduation way back in 19--, and I told him that hanging out with him constituted the only high school reunion I would be going to this year.

It happens to be one of those BIG reunion years for me. It’s not the first one, where everyone has transformed into cool, up-and-coming hipsters. It’s not the next one, where people come to brag about their new houses and cute little families and lucrative careers. The reunion in question is the one after that, where people try hard not to admit that they’ve morphed into the very parents they rebelled against all those decades ago.

I am not going to my reunion for many reasons, one of which is that my high school never threw a fun party. And true to form, there will be an alumni golf game and a luncheon, but no wild reunion bash. I can’t even begin to tell you how disappointing that is to me. If I’m forced to have a long conversation with John Q. Popular about what a sellout he is, I would prefer that there be a keg, some loud music, and dim lighting.

Another big reason why I’m not going to my reunion is that I haven’t been invited. Come to think of it, I haven’t been invited to any of the reunions. It’s kind of like I’ve been washed off the canvas of my adolescence. Apparently I was voted “Most Likely To Be Disowned By This Institution” at the end of my senior year. But honestly, that’s OK. Since I don’t have to spend time buying a new little black dress, I have a few extra minutes to contemplate the very idea of reunions and why they matter (or don’t).

I’ve always been a fan of reunion movies and books. Revenge is a big theme --- you know, where the ugly guy/girl comes back beautiful/rich/famous. And while I’d love to think that some of the under-appreciated members of my high school class are now fabulous and successful, that’s not the thing that truly interests me. I’m fascinated by the choices people make, even the small choices. Who stayed close to home (or who still lives in his parents’ basement?)? Who traveled far? Why did they leave? Who chose an interesting career? Whose career chose them? Did life turn out like they expected?

Over dinner, Pete claimed that I wouldn’t be very impressed by the stories I would hear at the reunion. I’d see lots of people doing regular things in regular ways. “But come on,” I told him. “Remember the group of boys who took a lot of steroids and spread chicken blood around the school our senior year? Aren’t you curious about what happened to them?”(This is true. It made the front page of the newspaper, in part because of the Boys Gone Wild nature of the stunt, and in part because the offenders got caught. Apparently there’s only one place to buy a live chicken in Detroit, and the chicken dealer identified the culprits). Pete figured that those boys probably stopped doing steroids long ago and are now medium-sized guys who work in a bank.

I suppose it would be disappointing to return to my childhood home only to find a beige and predictable group of people who hadn’t been transformed. But the more I think about it, my curiosity about the reunion has less to do with other people’s stories and more to do with my own. Did my life turn out like I expected? What did I expect, anyway?

I remember being at a graduation party when someone turned on Alphaville’s synth-pop ditty, “Forever Young.” A hush fell over the crowd as the singer crooned, “Forever young/I wanna be forever young…” It seemed so deep, that moment, sitting around with people we’d probably never see again, waving goodbye not just to friends but to childhood itself. And now, what strikes me even more than our incredibly bad taste in music is that feeling of being poised, of being ready to create something new. That’s the thing that gets lost in the churn of everyday living.

Last fall, Blue and Green attended a “preschool reunion,” which involved getting together with all the kids they hadn’t seen since, well, 4 months earlier. I will admit to you that I was excited about this event. How had the kids changed? Did little Skipper stop biting? Did Ken learn to wipe his nose? And Barbie, did she start to like math? The potential for transformation was there. But really, all the kids had more-or-less forgotten about each other as they began their new lives as kindergarteners. When the reunion ended, I asked the boys if it had been fun to revisit the long-ago days of preschool. “No,” Blue answered. “We are way beyond that.”

I, too, am way beyond those Alphaville days. But there’s a piece of me that would love to feel those clichés again, even for just a moment.