Attending my 25th High School Reunion
The Thanksgiving season is a popular time for reunions, and this year marks 25 years since I graduated from Chelmsford High School.
I've been to the 5th and the 20th reunions, and with few exceptions, you never really see the same group of folks. This year, I went with 4 of my oldest friends, 3 of whom had never attended a reunion. It was a blast, but also an adventure.
We bashed around a couple of ideas on how best to handle the evening so we could all relax and enjoy the experience, and settled on hiring a limousine. It was a good decision and also provided much of the aforementioned "adventure".
Those of use in close proximity to each other met at a friend's house in Westford, MA and the limo picked us up there. We then drove to New Boston, NH to pick up our farthest flung companion. If you have never been to New Boston, NH, lets just say it's a bit off the beaten path. Not only did we get lost finding our pal's house, we led our driver up one very rustic driveway (to the wrong house), and almost left half the limo's undercarriage behind trying to turn around.
Here I must give a shout out to our long-suffering, extremely professional and friendly driver Irene. She had the patience of a saint and nothing fazed her. Not the aimless searching for the correct house, not the requests for her take "glamour photos" of us in front of the limo and not even a little accident in the back of the limo involving a bit too much booze and not enough acid reflux medicine. Enough said. Irene, you rocked!
My friends who had never attended a reunion were quite nervous -- would they know anyone? Would it be boring and would we have to find a "Plan B" for the evening's entertainment? It was all for naught. One friend said to me after being in attendance for only 10 minutes "I'm so blown away!"
It's easy to be intimidated by these types of events. No matter how well you have done after high school, all the anxieties come back. Will the bully who tormented me in study still be waiting to make me miserable? Will the person who I "crushed on" (as the kids now say) remember me with a kind word? Will people think I'm a loser? Not to mention the ever present worry: "How have my looks held up over the years in comparison to my classmates?
I say: go for it! You may find some pleasant surprizes, as I did.