Reunions – a blast from the past?
The attached photo was taken at the
Hoffman Galleria where all kinds of items are sold, including this sign. An all-school reunion was held in my hometown
recently, and I was there but not in the way I used to be, not the way I was in
past reunions. What has changed?
I used to
revel in the memories of high school: cheerleading, basketball, social studies,
teachers, friends, exciting experiences.
Talking about those days with classmates and schoolmates was a highlight
of planned or accidental meetings. In my
own thoughts, I could recreate the feelings, whether happy or sad, of good old
school days. “Weren’t we crazy? Weren’t we the best class ever? Wasn’t that the best class ever?”
As the days
and months and years pass by with plans, accomplishments, joys, sadness,
family, the past has taken on a new shade of color. The brilliant “high definition” pictures and
videos of those memories have lost the clarity I once knew. Has middle age led to an aging television
memory? The HD is gone and is becoming
black and white. If I try hard enough I can conjure up the emotions of the
first class dance in seventh grade, or bringing the ball down the court of our very
first girls’ interscholastic basketball game.
And those feelings are pleasurable, but they no longer provide the
ego-centered entertainment they once did.
Instead, I want
to visit about my schoolmates’ present lives: health, retirement,
grandchildren. My own future is less
important to me, as well remembering my past.
It must be the evolution of growing up and moving on.
