I am about to leave for my trip to my 50th high school reunion. It's not without more than a little bit of trepidation. I never liked high school. It was not the best time in my life. I didn't really stay in touch with anyone from high school except for a few on Facebook. In fact a few of the people I considered friends from back then have died.
I guess I am going out of a sense of morbid curiousity more than anything else. I think I mentioned that I went to my 10th and 20th reunion. Both times I had this false sense that people would remember me and be impressed by what I had become. It couldn't have been farther from the truth. None of the people that I may have wanted to see from high school didn't bother with the reunions. I had graduated from college with a Journalism degree, but I was working at a transit agency. I think I told the people at the 20th reunion that I was a freelance writer (which was true in a way). Regardless, most people just asked if I had married or had kids. At the time neither was true.
The weird thing was that many of the people who attended the reunions (as you can image) had stayed in the city where we'd went to high school. For the most part they were the group of people who hung out together and I wasn't part of it. I was one of the fringe dwellers who was in band and was quiet in class. I didn't ski or accel in sports. My family didn't have money. I was there, but I wasn't memorable.
I do remember that people hadn't changed mentally or physically at the ten-year reunion. By the 20th, most people were starting to show their age. Now at the 50th I image they are going to need oxygen tanks available and we will compare medications. But I guarantee very few if any will remember me. It's a whole new layer of invisibility.
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