Has it really been 10 years?

It’s happening. This is the year. Almost everyone has to go through it. Some people think it’s so much fun. Some people find it immensely exciting. A few find it terrifying and awkward. There are some people who avoid it altogether. Great deals of people do whatever they can to prepare for it. A select few try like hell before it happens to change themselves. Even more act like they’ve changed when they really haven’t. It’s a time to reconnect with old friends and make new ones you thought you would never be able to. It’s a time to remember your former glory and take it on again as a means to define yourself. Depending on how old you are, you may have been through this ordeal before. Depending on your education level, you may not have to experience this. For me, it is this year. Let the tribulation begin! It’s my ten year high school reunion, and it is coming quicker than I would like. I’m in a damn facebook group for it. They’re having some sort of planning meeting this weekend. Though I made my mind up long ago about the whole reunion thing, I am still curious as to how it would be. What are we going to do? Who will be there? Would anyone recognize me or even remember me? Those are the questions. But, beyond vague curiosity, I have no desire to put myself through that obvious trial by fire.

Why? Because I have changed since high school. I’m not the same guy I was in high school. I have no want or need to get back together with all those people who knew the old me. The ones that liked the old me possibly won’t like the new me. And those that I never liked may have a different opinion of me now. Those people are the past, and I am trying really hard to get on to the future. They know a guy who wanted to be a psychologist. That idea is long gone. They know a guy who tries to be trendy. I haven’t followed a trend since by freshman year of college. They know a guy who planned to be married in his early twenties. I know now that if I am married it won’t be until my early or mid thirties. They know a dork that played the trombone and was on the swim team. I haven’t picked up my horn since our last concert senior year and my 50 freestyle time is about 3 seconds off my high school pace. They know a guy with a flashy light (Smurf) blue Tahoe with a hula dancer on the dash. That truck is in some junkyard somewhere and my ride has become much more understated (monochromatic). They know a straight edge guy who hadn’t smoked, experimented with drugs, or had a drop of alcohol. I’ve passed the smoking and drinking milestones and have stuck with drinking. Still no drugs…not for a lack of opportunities. They know a guy who spent time doing his hair up perfectly each morning. I shaved my head. I’m not that guy anymore.

Who am I now? Not any of those things I thought I’d be. I graduated SMU with my bachelor in economics and now I’m working on an MBA at UTD. That’s far from my psychology dream of high school, but it makes me happy. I’m a business man like my father. I can’t get around that. I’ll always think like a business man. I wear boots and jeans every day. I have for years now. Sometimes the Texas heat is just too oppressive for jeans and I’ll wear shorts, but that’s it. No Affliction shirts, no girl jeans, and none of that other crap that the stars, celebs, and reality actors where. It’s just who I am…that simple. I am relaxed and comfortable with the relationships I have in my life. I got close to being married once, but that went another direction and I realized I was going another direction, as well. There’s no rush, no pressure, and frankly I wouldn’t put myself or someone I loved through that without being completely stable (emotionally and financially). I have new hobbies that don’t involve band instruments. I started fishing a few years ago and really enjoy it. I bought a kayak last year so I could go kayak fishing with my brother. I write a blog, or at least have off and on, and find that writing is sometimes the only way for me to express myself without censoring myself. I’m an avid reader and researcher of history and religion. I’ve studied all world religions, read texts of histories of the United States as well as medieval Europe, and spent two semesters researching ancient Native American peoples of Central and South America. My goal in life is to go to Peru and climb the Urubamba Valley up to the Incan city of Machu Picchu. Oh, and I still swim, not as much as I used to, but I could still beat just about anyone I’ve come across. When the wreck of a truck that used to be Papa Smurf died, I got a nice black pickup to replace it. I haven’t done much to that truck, at least not as much as I did to the ol’ Tahoe. I’m an uncle now. It’s been four months and I think I’ve gotten the hang of it. I’ve been many things over the years since graduating high school, but nothing I’m terribly proud of. Nothing I want to share with the random people I once went to school with.

I just don’t see why these people that haven’t bothered to stay in contact with me and who didn’t inspire me to stay in contact with them desire my presence. Sure, they may have changed too and the new changed collective “we” may get along better than the high school “us”, but why? We needed to change in order to get along? Sounds like an excuse to spend a weekend getting dressed up, pretending our lives are better than they are, and drinking. I can do that without my old classmates. In fact I have already a couple times. What else would make me go? I don’t hold grudges with any of those people so there is no one there to try to confront. I don’t have “one that got away” so there is no need to go try to find her and confess my misplaced love. I don’t have any huge regrets that I haven’t resolved which would require me to show up and apologize to one of them. I have nothing to draw me there except for that curiosity I mentioned earlier.

Admittedly, my lack of aplomb for trying to get back to my reunion stems partly from the fact I haven’t really left. I’ve been in Dallas since I graduated, so it’s not like I’m going home to see all the old faces. I’m also not stoked about going because, honestly, I don’t have someone to go with. I might be a little more excited if I wasn’t going to fly into that thing solo. The one person I graduated with that I stay in touch with doesn’t want to go at all. To tell you the truth, she wants to not go more than I do. Her take, which I agree with, is this…you end up running into all these people who wouldn’t have given you a second thought when you were in high school and they act as if you are long lost friends. It is just so fake, so put on, that it is hard to get past. She is really unlucky because she runs into people from our class all the time and they do that all the time, it just made her jaded. I don’t deal with fake people that well, so I don’t know if I could endure a who weekend of running into people who could care less about me but want to have someone to talk to for a few minutes while the look for someone more interesting to latch on to. Not my idea of fun.

I’ll leave you with one of the many lessons I have learned from having an older brother. He went to his reunion two years ago, not because he wanted to but because his wife forced him (she didn’t even graduate with him, she just wanted to go out of curiosity). So he picked a couple of the events to go to from the weekend and attended those, had a good time, and caught up with some people he hadn’t talked to in years. Then, once the weekend was over, he never heard from those people again. They had a good time, for the weekend, and then they left it all behind and went back to their lives. His take on it was along the lines of, why even go in the first place? If you are going to just catch up for a few hours on a weekend then forget about it, why even go at all? Why not just forget it about it in the first place and do whatever you want to do on that weekend? Seems valid enough to me.