High School Reunion

Recently my wife and I attended her 20 year high school reunion. I honestly was not looking forward to going to this event as my opinion of such things is on the negative side. We had attended her 10 year reunion, which really doesn’t seem that long ago, and I didn’t really enjoy myself as there seemed to be some of the same old cliché cliques that for some reason thought the reunion was their own personal party that some of us just happened to show up to. I didn’t even bother showing up to my 10 year high school reunion; it’s the same high school but I graduated the year after my wife, so I didn’t imagine it would be much different. So my 20 year reunion is up next, and I have no intention on attending, but this doesn’t mean my wife’s  20 year was bad.

Prior to even leaving for the airport I was having anxiety, and a darn right negative attitude about the whole trip. I figured the 20 year wouldn’t be much different than the 10 year, and worse still one of us could cross paths with someone holding a grudge; not that I feel we’ve made any big enemies. I had discussed all my various issues of returning to my childhood hometown with my therapist prior to the trip, yet it was insight given to me in the last session before the trip while discussing a different subject that I had a moment where the advice all made sense and the applications were very clear. While parking I was still refining the idea and I decided I wasn’t attending this shindig for the rude people, or the cliques I wasn’t part of, or to have people kiss my ass, or to kiss other people’s asses; I’d let other people keep their problems even if they wanted me to share those problems with me. While there may have been clique-bitches (male and/or female) there I didn’t really notice, and was focused on interacting with the people I wanted to interact with. I even talked to some people I didn’t think would ever want to talk to me, and all of these people initiated the conversations; so that was nice. I got to talk to old friends as if time had never passed, and that was awesome. We stayed past 11 P.M. and for us at a social gathering was almost out of character. The next morning a small group of our friends met up for breakfast which for me felt really good as it was a reminder or positive reinforcement that I have friends out there that do like me, and they might even care about me; I care about them.

I could spend a little time complaining about a few things I didn’t like about the reunion, but that would get in the way of my message that the good experiences outweighed the bad ones, and if me, my wife, and our friends are all blessed we will be able to meet up again in the future.