HOW TO SURVIVE YOUR CLASS REUNION WITHOUT LOSING 10 LBS.

I'm about to board a plane, to head home from my high school reunion. It was awesome.  I find myself wishing I could do this again next year, and not wait another ten.  Then I ask myself the inevitable question, "Why do I feel this way?"  

I realize that reunions are time capsules.  For a few hours, at designated intervals, you get to relive moments from your youth with the only people in the world who can understand exactly how you feel.  It's amazing to think that you never even chose these people to be part of your life; you were all just thrown together because you were born in the same year.  But when you see them (and finally recognize all of them!), you're immediately transported back to another time

I think at some point most classes have a "watershed" reunion, and things are never the same.   My friends tell me they've had them.  It's the reunion when everyone finally gives up all pretense, and just has fun.  The filters are gone, and the conversations finally mean something.   It tends to also be the year when most people finally leave their spouses at home.  (Last time I brought Duncan to a reunion, he set up an "alumni donation" table at the exit.  I guess that was his way of telling me he'd had enough and wanted to go home.)  

My watershed reunion was our 30th.  That's when my classmates and I were able to remember the special times, and forget, and mostly forgive, the painful ones. There had been divorces, remarriages, jobs, firings, and all kinds of stuff you couldn't make up.   Real life had happened, which only seemed to make the memories sweeter.  But most of all, there was laughter, and it was deeper and more real.

I realize not everyone likes class reunions.  My husband never goes to his.  I don't know why, and I don't think he does either.  Five months ago he lost a classmate who was also his best friend.  As I headed to my reunion, I realized he could never go to a reunion to see the person he misses the most.   Perhaps for the first time, I fully appreciated why reunions just don't make emotional sense for some people. 

At this reunion, I learned that one of my classmates had died in a fire.  I remembered when she and I were cheerleaders, and baked ExLax brownies for the other team's cheerleaders who had a three hour bus ride home.  I remembered her smile; our innocence (yes, innocence, despite the ExLax).   That piece of my past was gone, and more pieces would be lost in the years ahead.  Sadly, our class puzzle was getting smaller.

I'm almost home now, and I already feel different.  The simplicity I felt over the past two days is ebbing away, and I miss it.  But before I close, I want to share my "Top 3 Survival Tips" for class reunions: 

1.Don't worry about losing 10 pounds before your reunion.  No one cares anymore, 

   and everyone's eyesight is getting worse.  Unlike high school, people   

   are now more interested in your mind than your body.  Especially your sense of   

   humor.  Use it.  If you insist on wearing the tight dress, squeeze yourself into one of 

   those neck to knee, hold-it-all-in spandex contraptions, and be prepared to 

   leave quickly if you have a wardrobe malfunction.  

2. Don't get distracted a few hours before the reunion, forget that you're holding 

    your expensive pearl earrings in the palm of your hand, put your medication in the 

    same hand, and swallow everything together. Not that such a thing happened to 

    me yesterday. 

3. Most of all, remember that class reunions aren't about the past; they are

    about renewal.  They inspire us to look ahead, and embrace ordinary 

    moments that make life  extraordinary.  To live purposely, with wild abandon, and 

    deliberate joy.   Time only goes one way.  And it isn't in reverse.    

P.S.  I'd love to hear your class reunion stories.  Can anyone top my swallowing pearl earrings?!