Last night was my twentieth high school reunion. My class was small enough that by graduation, pretty much everyone knew pretty much everyone else. That doesn’t mean we were all close friends; a lot of the people I was with last night I had only known but I don’t recall having been particularly close to twenty years ago.
Still, I felt bad that I didn’t recognize a lot of people, but that seemed to be a common problem with all my old classmates. No one has their big eighties hair anymore. Some of us (me included) have gained some weight, others have lost weight (good for them!) and pretty much everyone still looks pretty good. Of course, when I was seventeen, I wouldn’t have thought thirty-seven and thirty-eight year olds as attractive, but the world looks different now.
It was fun catching up with old friends and rekindling some old acquaintances. Realistically, I know I won’t see most of them again until the next reunion, whenever that is. But I hope I can at least recapture a few active friendships that had gone stale from the event. Some of the alumni are getting together again this afternoon for a family picnic, which is quite nearby so I may go by in a few hours with the dogs and meet their kids in real life instead of just seeing pictures. But jeez. The kids working the bar and catering looked so young. We were all that young once, now all us guys have traces of gray in our hair (those who still have it, that is) and everyone’s starting to get those little lines on their faces and we’re all talking about moving along our various career arcs. How did twenty years go by so fast?
hang on to your hollyhocks, kiddo… if you think the last 20 went fast, just wait till you see how fast the next 20 go. 38? Still a pup! Enjoy the ride.