Revisiting high school

My ten-year high school reunion is coming up this summer, and I’m starting to think about seeing some of my old friends again. We were a small graduating class – 27 of us – and by the time we graduated, I think it’s safe to say we’d all become friends. Sure, there were our spats and rivalries, typical teenage stuff, but I’d like to think we all got along pretty well.

In the past ten years, I’ve seen many of my classmates in different venues – weddings, funerals, spring break road trips, etc., – but there are several I haven’t seen since graduation. Just this weekend, in fact, David, Timothy, and I went to Las Vegas to visit a high school classmate who just had her first baby. I hadn’t seen her since we’d parted ways that eventful evening in June 2000. It was wonderful to meet her husband and son and to catch up a bit. I doubt either of us could have ever imagined that we’d be where we are today.

And I realised that she is the first of my classmates that I’ve seen when she is a mom. In fact, I’ve hardly seen any of my classmates since they’ve been married; the ones I have most often seen are the singles. I guess that’s typical, considering travel costs are double for a couple, let alone a whole family (some of my classmates have three kids). Admittedly, I would love to do more traveling than I am able to now, both because of finances and because of the stress of going anywhere with a toddler.

So it has been a long time since I’ve seen most of my class friends. I have tried to keep up, and Facebook has been a real boon there, but it’s impossible to keep intimately involved with every single person as time goes by. So who are these people in my class?

We are moms, dads, marrieds, singles, teachers, lawyers, doctors, speech pathologists, business partners, students, unemployed, nurses, administrative assistants, store  managers, IT wizards, graphic designers, and more!

And although I know we won’t all 27 be at the reunion, I also know that several people who did not graduate with us (who had left before 2000) will be there. It might be an awkward weekend, but it might just as well be an amazing one. So here’s to the Hillcrest Class of 2000: see you soon!