Reunited

It turns out that 20 years is exactly the right amount of time. You are in your late 30's, which at age 18 seemed dreadfully old but now that you're here, you realize that you are actually so much better than you were in your late teens. Wiser, more focused, more streamlined. The faint smile lines are enough to add character, without emphasizing age. The life experience adds shading. The high tech undergarments suck it all in, invisibly, under the outfit you chose, maybe, because it conveys something about your life since high school - I am more classy, more successful. I am more intellectual, I am thinner, I am richer. I am totally unconcerned with my appearance. I am more successful. I am more cultured. I am more confident.

We can legally consume alcohol now, and we do it in force. The memories have faded enough that we can color them in a way that makes us feel better about ourselves. Even the people you full out hated, the ones who never made eye contact, not once in 4 years. Even they are tolerable, if not any more likeable. Because they no longer have any bearing on your day-to-day life.

You see a face you haven't seen in 20 years and the name flashes across your mind-screen, a name you may not have pronounced or thought about in 2 decades. Others, you have to cheat and look at the nametag, which has a copy of the senior yearbook picture next to the name. If you are really good, you can do this undetected. I am not really good.

After 4 or 5 glasses of wine and the initial round of small talk, you can settle into real conversations with the people who hold your interest. In my case, there were a few surprises - people I went to school with for 4 or 6 or even 12 years but never really knew. Others, people I knew casually & liked at 18, I found I liked even more at 38. And then there were the no-eye-contact girls. They still suck but it matters so little. Not at all.

I know that reunions are not for everyone, and after a full weekend of Pete's CGA reunion last week, followed by last night's event which I have been involved in planning for about 8 months, well...I'm reunioned out. But I thoroughly enjoyed spending an evening reconnecting with people who knew me as a child, an adolescent, a teen. In most of our day-to-day lives, we spend very little time thinking about our younger selves. Being among a large crowd who all knew each other in that context, I think it keeps you honest. If not about who you are now, then at least about how you got here.