Yes, you read that right. I went to a high school reunion. Not just A high school reunion, but MY high school reunion. It was my first reunion in 30 years.
Here’s the thing — in the last 30 years, and particularly in the last dozen, I’ve become exceptionally introverted. I keep to myself, I loathe being the center of attention (like I ever really encouraged it in the first place), and I rarely leave my comfort zone. But after some serious waffling, I ended up signing up at the deadline. The feeling of dread hit me before I could release the mouse button after clicking “submit”.
“Holy crap, I’m going to go see PEOPLE.”
Long story short, the trip was amazing. So much so, in fact, that I had real problems emotionally/mentally once I returned to the “real world”. I ended up on such a high that the fall was pretty precipitous. I miss those people, and my true home, so very much.
Friday I had dinner with a friend of mine at The Dogwood Tavern, and then we went to the homecoming football game and met up with my class. There were maybe a dozen to two-dozen people there, corralled next to one of the stadium light poles, and just bantering about. Right around half time, we migrated to Kilroy’s, which has been the de facto gathering point for as long as I can remember. Heck, even my mom met her former co-workers there for lunch on a monthly basis til she was unable to attend when her health turned. After a while there mingling, I returned to my hotel and tried to get some sleep, as I was certainly going to need it for Saturday.
I was seriously concerned about not being able to get to sleep, since I was so amped up, but exhaustion finally overtook me and I got an average to better than average night of rest. Upon waking on Saturday, I decided on breakfast at the hotel and then headed over to my home town. I had some time to kill so I went by my childhood home and reminisced a bit, then headed over to the high school and met up with others from my class. We toured the school for an hour or so, with the high point being the auditorium in which my best friends and myself spent so much time, and then we had a pizza lunch in the school cafeteria. Following that, it was back to the hotel for me for some rest, as I had a full day/evening ahead of me.
Later that afternoon, I drove to Nokesville, VA to enjoy the talents and banter of Something Shiny, of which my classmate Russ is a part (half, actually, since they are a duo). This performance conflicted with the reunion dinner but, after traveling to the area several times in the last few years but missing their shows due to conflicts, I wasn’t going to miss this one. I stayed til about 7:30, then high-tailed it back to the hotel, which is where the reunion dinner was being held. I threw on my high falootin’ duds in record time and headed down. 3 hours late, sure, but I got there just in time for the group photo.
I mingled with the others til the official event wrapped up at 11 p.m., and then a few of us found ourselves out in the parking lot partaking of conversation, memories and beverages til close to 2 a.m. It was an amazing time!
Back to the room for the night and then in the morning, I awoke, cleaned up, and got all my stuff to the car (except, apparently, for a cheap bluetooth speaker that annoyed me anyway so it wasn’t much of a loss). I then met up with some of my school mates and we walked to Harvey’s for breakfast. Following that, I said my goodbyes to everyone and began the trip home. Rolled into the driveway about 7:30 a.m. Monday morning and used the rest of the day to unpack, unwind, and spend time with my kids.
So there you have it. I went, I saw, I survived….