Well, tonight was my 15 year high school reunion. This was the first time in 15 years that I would be seeing most of my classmates as my graduating class didn’t have a five year reunion and when the 10 year occurred; my wife and I were traveling through Europe. I did decide however that I had to go this year. There was no way I could wait another five years, after all I’m still relatively fit and I still have all of my hair. Who knows, in another five years I could be an absolute mess. The other added benefit for me was that it was being held only a few minutes away from my house and that it cost only $5. I kept saying that even if it was lame, I could leave early and at least I knew it sucked.
After getting all cleaned up and putting on a new pair of clothes, Jen and I ventured over to the Olde Harbor Inn in the Portage Lakes. I knew for a fact that two of my good friends with whom I still keep in contact with weren’t going to be there, but I was hoping that some of my friends who I had lost contact with would be. Walking into the space, I was relieved that I could recognize peoples faces but that was probably due to the fact that I had looked through my old yearbook a few nights prior to. In no time, I began finding old acquaintances to talk with. The problem is because they were just acquaintances in school, the chit-chat ended fairly quickly as the questions and answers became very routine from person to person. I told Jen going into this that this night would either be over very quickly, or it would be very late. You can guess for yourself since I’m home writing this in the same evening which of the two it turned out being. The problem I have is that I wanted much more out of this reunion then what I got. I don’t know if that’s my fault or if there’s really anyone to blame but standing there, looking and talking with everyone, it seemed as though everything was the same and no one really changed. The same people who hang out together in high school hung out there tonight and didn’t socialize much further than that small circle. Snobs were still snobs, jocks were still jocks and punks were still punks. I will admit that there were a couple of guys that I didn’t know well in school who I had some good conversations with and they appeared to be genuinely nice people. Makes me wish I had more opportunities in school to get to know them better.
One thing I learned tonight was that success can be measured in many different ways. The old cliché of trying to outdo others to show success is bull shit. So much of high school and even college was trying to outdo the competition (i.e. classmates) to make you feel better about yourself by getting good grades. For a part of my life that I thought defined who I was, it turned out that it didn’t at all. It’s not important whether I ended up being a professional athlete, a world famous rock musician or a trash man as long as I’m happy in what I’m doing. From this architect, a husband of almost 10 years and father of two happy and healthy boys, that’s all the success that I need in life, everything else is just icing on the cake.
The bottom line is that there is no bottom line. I left there feeling disappointed that the night didn’t turn out differently. I’m not sure what I expected, but it certainly wasn’t that. Will I go to the 20 year reunion? Probably not. It’s not enough for me to be drawn back wondering who got fat, bald and divorced. Maybe I’ve grown up.
brian
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