Falling on My Head Like a New Emotion

Wendy H-K sent me these pictures and then later sent me her reflections on reuniting. The rest of this post is from her email:

I found the below discussion on the NHS blog site from Rami via the SHS 87 site (having a kidless moment at 10:15 PM): I thought it was very thoughtful.

The below paragraph puts it all into perspective.

I think reunions are about celebrating one’s happiness with old classmates. Celebrating the fact that as adults we’ve matured to the level where there are no more “labels” that divide us in the commons area. And that we can see that the once so called “head” just may have turned in the Ted Nugget shoes for a court room suit, that the once so called “jock” vows each new year to loose his/her love handles, and that the “geek” you once cheated off of in Science should be on the cover of GQ or Vogue Magazine. Regardless of who we are and how we look when we reunite, let’s just be happy with the fact that we are no longer 15 years old in high school. I mean ...come on now! We are almost 40!

Things it brought back to me: How many of us were dragging our feet because we thought the same old stuff would be there? I was definitely one of them. I decided to go, make the most of it, and had a wonderful time (Friday through Sunday). My only regret was not talking to everyone I wanted to have time to talk to. I needed one more night, or an all night babysitter! There were people I did not get a chance to talk to that I knew were there (Mrs. Manetta being one of them; I will never forget coming home in college and finding my letter from myself/to myself in my mailbox telling me what I thought I would be doing 5? years from sophomore year), people I did not know were there at all and would have died to have talked to (found out about later that they were at the Gallery), and others that I did not get to finish conversations with.

As an adult, I don’t care what people think about me any more vs. having been 15. Now in my present home in Florida, I am friends with a great deal of people. I look at them and think, I am sure we all encompass all the groups/high school cliques from around the country, but as adults we all are completely comfortable with each other, and never find the need to discuss our high school class level. It is so great to be able to be adults and to have this burden lifted. It is so great to be able to go back to your 20th reunion feeling that we are all on equal playing fields, and just having a really relaxing time, being totally confident in who we are as adults (whether it encompasses having made mistakes along the way or not)—and not the completely self-conscious teen, who is needing or wanting to be accepted at the age of 15-16 years and hiding our true selves. I truly had a great time.