My 30th high school reunion was this weekend. Richmond High School Class of ’89. I won’t go into an extended meditation on the subject. (I mostly did that for my 25th reunion.) But, I’d recommend going to these things. People are, for the most part, just people, and you come to recognize that the folks you knew in high school mostly aren’t the caricatures that maybe you’ve built up in your head. (Although, there are a handful of people that remain stubbornly disagreeable.) My sense is that, by understanding the people you grew up with a little better, you come to understand yourself a little better. And, as I mentioned after 25 years, in a sense, it’s a chance to visit with your younger self a little bit.
Anyway, have a picture.
Getting together with folks at high school reunions has always been good for me. I always discover that my adolescent brain failed to appreciate the wonderful and interesting people I see there and the fact that we were all struggling to make sense of life, but not always succeeding. Recently, at one of those gatherings, after such a discussion, I suggested that if our 16 year old brains only had the insight that our much older brains have now, we could have had a wonderful time together. I think reunions give you that chance. One realizes, however, that to get really good at something, you have to be pretty bad at it for quite a while.
Part of it is simply the narcissism of youth. I say this not to grumble about young people — being self-centered is a necessary stage of growing up. But, what it means is that your own shortcomings loom so large in your own head that you fail to notice that other people are struggling with their own stuff and mostly don’t care about or even vaguely notice yours.
Amazing how things change for the better when you realize that “it’s not about me”, not just when your frontal lobes kick in around 16, but at any time in your life. Nice piece for people to think about.
Really takes the pressure off!