welcome class of '97
Saturday started off like any other day. I was lazy and took my time showering, and I spent the majority of the day in my bathrobe. I pampered myself a little bit, due to the nature of the upcoming evening. I shaved my legs, put on some nice-smelling lotion, and painted my fingers and toes. Bright red. Cause that was the mood I was in. And it would look nice with my outfit. I watched a little TV, had a late lunch, and made the final choice as to what I'd be wearing. Black. It somehow seemed appropriate. After putting together all the finishing touches, I was exhausted. But no rest for the weary. The night had not yet begun. I threw my camera in my purse and grabbed my overnight bag, and I was on my way to pick up J. She looked lovely in a wrap-around dress, also black, and metallic-colored flats due to the brace on her knee. After getting settled in my car, we made our way out to the burbs. One stop to pick up the other J, we'll call her J2, who was wearing black also. I either made the right decision in my choice of wardrobe, or the wrong one, depending on how much I wanted to stand out from the crowd. We finally reached our first destination of the night, Pub 222 in the home burb, where we met up with K and C, and a classmate named A who we hadn't seen in 10 years (duh). After a quick pre-party drink at the Pub, we made our way to the main event.
My Ten Year High School Reunion.
Driving up to the banquet hall, we could already tell that the location was going to leave a lot to be desired. But this was not so important, as we were there to see the people. We walked into the entry hall, were given our name tags and memory books, and it began. Walking into that room filled with familiar faces, people I hadn't seen in so long, people who I wasn't sure I even had anything to say to, it hit me like a wall. It was surreal. The turnout was not even close to half our graduating class, but still, the mass of faces floating before me brought back a rush of old memories. I was at a school dance again. And there were still cliques. Though in retrospect, perhaps the people I viewed as being in cliques were merely feeling the same anxieties as the rest of us and preferred to stick with the people they knew best. Maybe they weren't cliques so much as groups of friends. Maybe there was someone there who saw my group of friends as a clique. One of the first people to come up and talk to me was P. P was a girl who I knew in HS and was friendly to, though she was a bit of a charity case. I wouldn't say we were friends per se, but like I said, we were friendly. After we exchanged the initial pleasantries, she introduced me to her husband as "One of the few people in high school who I actually hung out with." I don't really remember any "hanging out" but in a weird way, I was flattered. However, I had to be the one to break it to her that her HS crush, who was not in attendance, was married. Not that it mattered, she being married herself, but still. Nobody likes to hear that. I spoke to several people throughout the night who I was really glad to reconnect with. R was a girl I'd known since 4th grade when we were in Girl Scouts together. She is doing well and just got married a few months ago. J3 was a very nice girl who lived nearby me in HS, and who is now married with twin boys born this past February. It was great to see that K, another old girl scout friend, hadn't changed at all since high school. E looked the same as he did in HS (and college), but he had come out of his shell quite a bit, which was good to see. And the theatre people, J4, W, M and J5, it made me really happy to see them there, though I wished more of those folks had shown up. T (and C), A2, T2, T3 (and L) - it was great to hang out with them, though I had never lost touch with them to begin with. And then there was B. B was my crush all throughout senior year. When I first saw that he was there, it was like I was in high school all over again. I wanted to go up and talk to him, but I was nervous, just like I used to get all those years ago. I didn't know how to do it. Did I walk right up to him and start talking? Or did I casually make my way over there, chat with some people surrounding him until I caught his eye? It turned out that I didn't need to do anything at all. I was walking past where he was standing, on my way to grab my camera, when he made an odd movement and brushed my arm. He turned to see who was there, and voila, instant conversation. We talked about where we lived and worked, and what we thought about the turnout at the reunion. He mentioned his concern that a lot of people would be all "domesticated" while he wasn't yet. We discussed the need to have roots, and the fact that our parents all still lived in the town we grew up in. We talked about the one date we had had in high school, which happened to be the shining moment of my senior year (though I'm not sure he knew that). It was a nice conversation. And man, that guy is just as gorgeous as I remember. :) You know, I could reflect on our conversation all day, but I'm sure that would be a deathly bore to anyone reading this, so I'll move on. Prior to that night, I was wondering what kind of music would be played, and it ended up being ... interesting. The beginning of the night was all music from the 90's, when we were in school. And yeah, it was all pretty bad. Then they switched to dance music ... and it continued to be pretty bad. But I had a good time dancing anyway, and after my three whiskey-and-cokes it became that much more fun. The night began to wind down and we tried to figure out where to go afterwards. T2 mentioned a party (which B and his friends were going to as well). Since I never got invited to those parties in high school, this sounded like a swell plan to me, so I followed T2 and E up to the neighborhood to try and find the house (nobody seemed to have an address). After a futile search, we gave up and called a friend who was at a bar, and went to meet him. Turned out the party must have been nonexistent, because all of the people who were supposedly going ended up at this bar instead. Chatting with E and T2 at the bar was a nice end to the evening. At the relatively decent hour of 1:15 a.m. I packed up and made my way to my parents house to crash in my old bedroom, in my old bed. It seemed an appropriate end to an evening filled with nostalgia.
The main conclusion I drew from this evening was that aside from a couple of individuals, I already keep in touch with the people who I cared most about in high school. The majority of the people at the reunion, for me, it was enough just to see their faces again. I didn't even need to say anything to them. I mentioned in a previous post how I saw this reunion as an epilogue to my time in high school, and it really was. And now that it's over, the credits are rolling, and I can leave it all behind.
