My Wife's Class Reunion

Over the weekend my wife attended her 20-year class reunion. Normally the spouses dread this event, but I rather enjoy it every five or ten years. I enjoy it because we went to rival high schools, and I have the uncommon pleasure of pretending I'm not over the rivalry. And class reunions happen just infrequently enough that her Malad Dragon classmates forget that Esther's married to one of those evil Aberdeen Tigers. So it's a new joke every time, and I take full advantage of it.

Since Esther worked hard to help organize this year's reunion, I had the skinny on most who were attending, where they lived, what their background is. Class reunions are odd in that half of those in attendance know each other well, like siblings almost. The other half don't really have a clue who anyone is. Half of the room is filled with reminiscent camaraderie. The other half is made up of man-I-hope-this-gets-over-soon awkwardness. I found comedic value in observing this strange dichotomy. (Just for the record, nobody who graduated from Malad High School ever uses big words like "dichotomy". You have to go to Aberdeen to learn four-syllable words.)

And you know what else? I think there's a yet-to-be-diagnosed mental disorder called "Class Reunion Aversion Syndrome". It stems from the strange perception that when you return to your alma mater 20 years after leaving, everyone else will have the same hair and waist lines, drive the same shiny cars, have the same hot boy- and girlfriends, and will have retained all the same personality traits -- good and bad -- they had twenty years earlier. What happens, actually, is that the jock, who looked like Tom Cruise, now looks like Dennis Franz. And the bully is now the the bishop. The stoner has become the policeman, and the beauty queen is now the frumpy mom. That quiet homely girl has turned into the Cover Girl. Everyone seems to have grown up. Sad, though, for those who find an excuse to stay away, suffering from a bad case of CRAS, when they could be there reminiscing, laughing, learning that everyone changes, and that everything is ok.

Maybe it's different in larger high schools. Esther's class had 55 students. Mine had even fewer.

While more-so for Esther, since it was her high school reunion, it was an experience of mixed feelings to introduce our teenaged children to each other. Some even talked about their grandchildren. Grandchildren!? We're not there yet, but in ten years we easily could be.

As Confucius once said, "Time keeps on ticking, ticking, ticking, into the future." (or maybe that was Steve Miller).

We had a fun, enlightening, and self-reflecting weekend