"Memories that should have long since crumbled to dust from seventeen years of
attrition turn out to have been hermetically sealed and perfectly preserved, now
summoned up as if by hypnotic suggestion."
This is particularly fitting right now as I am focusing on my twenty year reunion. I have spent the past few weeks building the website, tweaking it, dreaming about it, obsessing over it and occasionally reliving a bit of my youth. I’ve become reacquainted with a few people who I didn’t know very well back then but that are pretty great today. I am genuinely excited … and a little freaked out.
In my normal life I am a pretty confident, laid back woman. I’ve lived a lot (though if you ask my oldest, he’d roll his eyes; what in the world do I know?). I’ve had lots of experiences both good and bad that have shaped me into who I am today. And, all in all, I’m pretty proud of who I am today. Awesome kids, a great husband, enough life left in me to still have big plans for the future. What is it about surrounding myself with these very nice people from my youth that brings out all the buried insecurities (that should have long since crumbled to dust from twenty years of attrition, right??)? I turn into that geeky wall flower I was back then, hoping not to be noticed and convinced there is something just not quite right about me.
Recently, while watching TV Land’s High School Reunion, I thought back to my high school days, the people I remember from back then, and tried to put the same labels on my classmates that they use on the show; The Jock, The Nerd, The Cheerleader, The Gay Guy, The Party Girl. Eventually though, I came to the conclusion that labeling these people from my past is what brings out my own insecurities. By labeling my classmates, putting them in a box I assumed they were in twenty years ago, it’s only logical that I revert to the person I was back then too. And I didn’t really like that person.
There’s that saying “If I only knew then what I know now.” Well, now I know that everyone hated high school. We were all insecure. The cheerleader, the party girl, the gay guy, they all had their own demons they were dealing with. I’m sure the people I went to school with have moved on from that identity, lived their own lives, grown in ways I can’t imagine. I’m excited to learn where life has taken them.
Now, as I move forward, reacquainting myself again with people from my past, I will try to bury my insecurities. I will remember we are ALL pushing 40, we are all adults for better or worse, some of us even have teenagers of our own. I will remember to enjoy the moments as they happen, not retreat into my comfortable shell and people watch from the sidelines. With all the committee meetings and the facebooking we are doing, I have time to get comfortable with these new friends, move on from the labels I had attached to them 20 years ago and enjoy getting to know the people they have become.
That’s the plan anyway. As I sit here typing on the computer it’s easy to say. We’ll see how resolved I can be this summer. Wish me luck!
