I won't lie, I wasn't overly excited about attending in the first place. Maybe because most of the people I wanted to see, I still keep in touch with. Maybe because I feel like I was a completely different person then...one who was often shy, fairly insecure, and wet behind the ears in terms of the realities of the "real world."
I'll admit - there was about an hour of the day today when I genuinely panicked just a little bit. Fearful that my old insecurities would come back out, and fearful that the reunion would be just like high school...a popularity contest. The old me back then would have never dreamed of braving an event like this alone. But here I am...27, single, and happy to attend date-less. By choice. No longer do I feel the need to constantly show up accompanied. I learned that through experience...multiple years of having no other choice. In high school you can take your buddies every where you go, but in real life, not so much. I've grown comfortable in my own skin...not that i'm 100% satisfied with it, but comfortable with who God made me to be, nonetheless.
The crowd there tonight was an odd mix...probably about 1/4 of our graduating class. It was an eclectic intermingling of the old "cliques," and I felt like the only people there not drinking were me and the 4 pregnant ladies. It felt as if I had pressed pause on a movie (we'll go with Fast Times at Ridgemont High just to give you a visual), and came back to that same scene ten years later. It felt like everything in the scene was exactly the same...everything except me. I can't really explain it. I know some people have changed (some for the better, some not-so-much), and some are exactly as I remember them...but I felt somewhat like Marty McFly watching himself have a conversation that had already happened.
I think tonight just made me grasp that I have grown a lot in ten years....more than I realized, I think. Don't get me wrong...I'm still a work in progress, but I feel like i'm lightyears away from the girl I was at EPHS.
And then I realized that the next time I will see a lot of these people, we will all be close to 40.
Wow.
I can't imagine how much will have changed by then....and how much will still be just the same.
3 comments:
Just looking at the two pictures, I would say your smile is LOTS bigger now, so you've gotta be pretty happy now.
In my opinion, not much changes before the 10 year reunion because so many people are still trying to live out the expectations from high school and college. The 20 year is what I look forward to because you really get to see how everyone turned out. By then everyone has had time for "life" to happen and you really get to see the changes then.
Bring back the bangs! Bring back the bangs!
Ha ha... seriously, great post Jamie! I felt much the same way at my 10-year reunion. It's surreal.
Bite your tongue, Erin...those bangs were horrible! Ahh, life before a flat iron.... ;)
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