The Story that Never Was - My 20th HS Reunion

The party planner should never plan to have a great time. A good time perhaps, but a great time, never. This was my 20th reunion, and for me, a good time, but not a great time. Too much worrying about the sound, the food, the program, the past, a little worry about the present and am I pulling off the eggplant eyeliner? Is it too severe?

Much was right about it the day, the time, our correspondence with classmates, the personalized details such as: the centerpieces framed pictures of some our high school teachers, ol’ school candy such as pop rocks, and a survey which indicated the percentage of classmates which were:
divorced: 7%,
married: 82%
living the lives of their parents: the majority

The reunion peaked out at around 350, it brought three of the four members of the high school band, The Surface back for what was intended to be a three-song encore, but became an evening of music (which was great to many, except those sleeping the rooms above the ballroom). Overall, it felt like an evening of leftovers –left over food, programs, buzz books, lusts, loves, rejection. The evening was reminiscent of high school itself, fleeting, tense, clique’ish and full of wanton dreams and impossibility.

It isn’t to say didn’t have moments of discovery or joy; novel reconnection or new connections, I did. But I had been traveling back to this life for the past 6 months, and it already had resulted in indepth correspondence, personal ephiphanies, such as recognition that I do look different that my childhood self (face is narrower and hair is controlled not chaotic), and possibilities of real friendship with a side of love or lust or both. Here’s a lowdown:

** I found out that along with pot smoking, the other egregious crime was taking someone’s SAT test – a true act of community service

** I discovered that where money, at one time, bought one physical beauty or enhanced it, it was not as potent as it was before. Those with money may be able to lessen the lines in their faces, but it felt more like a false cover to the truths of biology, and chronology than beauty. Our faces are our biographies and they tell a story. Life happens. (not to say I have not thought about filling my own lines of worry and stress and sadness with unnatural substances. I do wax my brows and color my hair and recolor and wax once the roots arrive.) And I wear eye cream.

** I discovered for the most part that those high school flutters remained intact, but were less sky-like and more earthy and grounded. Still have a desire for the witty, the short, the caustic, the informed, and politically left..not that I have been remotely involved in the last 20 years with anyone who meets those variables.

Okay..well some have had wit, a couple were short, some leaned left, some informed-many have been more on the Adonis, chronic pot-smoking, fundamentalist, artistic (not a fundamental artist) plane, and some didn’t even read. One person I dated owned one book (I bought him another book, Salinger’s Raise High the Roof Beams, Carpenter ,but he thought it was a ‘how to’ book on carpentry and wondered why there weren’t any pictures.) I should’ve bought him the audio version.

Back to the reunion…

** Disappointed (but more so from a biological rather than psychological lens),yet not surprised that the married folks (with the exception of a very inebriated one) were not willing to forget their public vows and promises (la la la) taken awhile back, and engage in illicit behavior. I’m not a purist nor a monogamist –every relationship is mixed differently and I don’t believe in such absolutes—perhaps I should.

In almost every person I spoke to, I saw the boy in the man, and the girl in the woman.

** I spoke with this woman who stayed up with me until 1am (in 6th grade!) while we called this boy I LOVED, who made my heart flip (he was also in attendance) and she negotiated us ‘going out’

My stepdad would always ask:
SD: So WHERE are you going?
Me: We aren't GOING anyplace. Out. Ya know.
Oy.
I had to leave home to live in metaphor.

** The boy who breathed motorcycles became the man who made motorcycles his life and livelihood.

** The boy who loved sci-fi and comics and quirkiness writes in fantasy for television and film.

** The boy who often asserted (and was) the smartest or certainly one of the most able to thrive in a standardized-test world, seems like a man lost in the world which is often less concrete, more ambiguous, and too emotionally demanding.

** A boy of quietness becomes a man of inner-strength finding meaning in yoga and meditation.

Physicality was the talk—the hottest, the coldest, the coolest, the strangest --- the 2007 class polls -- but most people (I believe) had some genuine moments beyond the surface and the surveying.

And finally…
I was never one of those girls who fought with girls engaged in pettiness about boys and clothes and image. I recall many girls I knew getting in fights or arguments with other girls about this and that. I’d be like, "What are they fighting about! Who fights? For what? Reagan is still president, anti-semitism is rampant in France, and more importantly, Superbowl Shuffle just came out on VHS."

Perhaps I never loved or invested enough in my friendships to have them evolve into such tyranny and drama. I always felt more comfortable around guys who unlike girls were often more secure, and less critical of others and themselves. More than likely, most girls who fought or argued had little else in their lives, and thus felt some mental need to create drama and tensions or came from homes with mom’s who were yellers, and played tennis too much.

And thus, I found myself at my 20th high school reunion in the midst of high school drama; my desire for authenticity is not always a good thing.

More than likely it is my need for control, less drama as the cause for this after-school special. Plotline- one girl communicates discomfort to former fling about him bringing his girlfriend to the reunion. Subplots- electronic communication, including this blog, religion, culture, creative collaboration, beauty vs. brains.
Themes: trust and mistrust, skewed perception, transparency, and honesty.
Conclusion-TBA

I was hoping for a different kind of drama…like a love deferred resurfaces and we make out in the coat room or behind the front desk, or the finding of creative synergy with a long-lost childhood collaborator, or the discovery or rediscovery of a kindred spirit, friend or lover or both, swapping stories about others, sharing fears, and drinking Pinot (Noir or Grigio) into the night and discussing who we think may be gay, a bookie, or a gay bookie. But it was not to be. THE story of this reunion has not been written, yet. Maybe the next one. Maybe sooner.