Class Reunion

I'm sure most people have gone to at least one of their class reunions. I think I've mentioned before how I view life. It's as if one life ends when I go on to another... for me there's no looking back: Kind of like acts of a play, and as soon as I'm through one act, the curtain draws, and I'm on to my next one.

I first noticed that curtain between one life and another when on vacation to Peakes Island, Maine. It always seemed to rain the day of travel, and the rain seemed like a curtain falling on my pimples and problems of my awkward teenaged years in Woburn, and on the ferry ride from Portland to Peakes was like a curtain lifting on a very different life--One where I could be myself--A life where I didn't have to worry about what others thought of me. It was so freeing. I so loved Peakes that now I don't dare go back for fear it would whitewash those memories of the place, as it did when I visited my old home in Woburn. I like to lock up my good memories safely so I can take them out whenever I want and look at them through the eyes of whom I was at that time.

It's the 50th Reunion! I can't believe I'm that old. And I guess if I attended, I'd have a better grasp on the reality of that fact... but I don't know if I want to whitewash all those old memories of my friends--those with whom I don't know what would have happened if they weren't there for me through some of the most difficult years of my life. It may be worse than my seeing the old house and it's lost stomping grounds which seemed to change to something unrecognizable. Here's some parts of the emails between the 50th High School reunion committee.

To the initial contact, this was my gut reaction when told wrote:

"... I doubt if I'll ever go to a reunion... don't even keep up with the Lucky Six Plus Club members of back then in the dark ages. I hated all 12 years of school. In earlier blogs it may have been discussed... they are probably since then deleted." [I was referring to the boys teasing me as a teenager, and it took me many many years to forgive them.]
[I summed up my life briefly]:
"I got a job with Braniff Airways; worked in the teletype room; and married my first husband in 1962, and bought a house in Norwalk, Conn., where we resided about a year and a half. Had my first baby in 1963, a boy... had my 2nd, a girl, in Conn. in 1964; and then moved to Vestal, NY where had my last child, a boy, in 1968. I resided and lived there until my separation in 1980, and divorced in '85, and married the love of my life, Tom, in the same year, and we'll have our 23rd anniversary this November. I have 2 stepchildren whom I love dearly. All five children are married with children of their own... giving us a total of 14 grandchildren."
[This classmate found me via my blog]:
"As you can see from my blog, life is good, and I'm still that pony-tailed girl inside, pony-tailed woman on the outside, with the same interests in life... anything but school... mostly just the good ol' outdoors." ["... and," I should have added, "... writing."]

[I heard back from him. He was about the only boy in some of my classes who never teased me...
His email back ended like this:
"I remember you from school but also from council of churches events and there was that play or skit at your Congregational Church where you portrayed a country type girl. i guess that was an apt role."

I didn't even remember that role. But here's part of my email back to him:
"...Keep me up to date with this reunion. It occurred to me AFTER I wrote that it will be our 50th. I kept going over the figures in my head. It didn't seem possible that it was 50 years ago. I doubt if my husband would want to make the trip. I have a brother in Burlington, and I could stay there if we attended. Let whomever is sending out the info in on where I live: Thanks.
I also was thinking, 'I hate to have others see how I've aged' but so has everyone else, and if I look older than them, it will only make them feel better about how age has treated them.
Thanks for getting in touch."
-----
As you can see... I was reneging. I realized for the first time--maybe ever--that I still loved and cared about my old friends. It's always nice to be remembered. But, I wondered if that would be enough. Who did I really WANT to see. Or did I really want to even see those old friends that I truly loved. It would be difficult then to remember them from that "act" of my life where on that stage they were teenagers and would stay that way in my thoughts, if I didn't ruin my memories with an update after all these years.

So, at my book club last week, where most of the others are around my age give or take 5-10 years, I asked them about reunions. I don't think but one liked their reunions, and the husbands hated them, of course, as they knew no one, and couldn't stand when she and her old girlfriends would get together and reminisce about things the husband had no part of. I know only too well the difficulty of feeling left out, and don't want my husband to go through that. I also know he would hate me to go alone. Although it's ridiculous for him to think it, I'm sure he thinks that old boyfriends are lined up to get a glimpse of me entering the ballroom door at the Woburn Country Club. His vision of this is different from my vision of that if anyone cared. I could picture the one or two who may or may not have had a crush on me watching for my appearance and wanting this old lady to get out of the way so they could catch the glimpse of the pony-tailed gal in a poodle skirt and white buck shoes they remembered from High School.

No... not only do I want to remember my friends as they were... and check the old yellowed yearbook if I forget, but I want them to remember me the same way. They would then not have to accept the fact that the old lady in the way at the ballroom WAS that "Chantilly Lace with funny face... with the pony tail hanging down..." And when they think of me, they can think of themselves at that young handsome age also.

Dream on.