Why I’m Not At My 10-Year High School Reunion

Tonight is my ten year high school reunion.

I am not there.

I admit, originally I decided not to go after looking at the Facebook group for my high school class. Our class president (side note: apparently our class officers get stuck planning every reunion until they die, which I’m not sure they realized when they ran for an office that they probably only wanted because it looked good on a college application) asked us to post updates on our lives for our alumni magazine (which I didn’t even know we had), and the responses would put the Smug Marrieds from Bridget Jones’s Diary to shame. No one was married at the five year reunion, but apparently, people have gotten busy getting married and reproducing in the five years since then. While the five-year was hilariously awkward (seriously, the entire event consisted of people walking around with forced smiles saying, “Hi! How are you? Isn’t this awkward?”), I envision this one as full of people showing off engagement rings and pictures of their kids. And it embarrasses me that not much has changed since I couldn’t get a date in high school—I’d never had a boyfriend then, and now, at twenty-eight, I still haven’t.

That’s not the only reason, though. Another reason is that I just haven’t stayed in touch with many people from high school. Those I have I can keep up with through Facebook, and the rest…well, honestly, I never think about them and don’t particularly care what they’re doing now. And although I wrote an article for the school newspaper at the end of senior year about how high school is what you make of it and how it’s your own fault if you aren’t going to miss anything from high school (I found out from my younger cousin that the health teachers started passing that article out to the freshmen after I graduated), in truth, I haven’t missed high school once since I graduated.

High school was a weird time in my life. Not a bad time. Middle school was awful—I talked about it here, but in middle school, people were really mean to me on a daily basis. The pop culture stereotype is that high school is like that, but it wasn’t for me. The way I remember it, high school was probably the most self-centered times of our lives. We were all trying so hard to get into college that we didn’t have time to think about how weird that kid in our biology class was.

More than anything, when I look back at high school, I remember how busy I was all the time, and I don’t know how I ever got through it. I swam six days a week during the fall and, for a couple of years, several days a week in the winter. I always took multiple honors and AP classes. I sang in the chorus and, senior year, in the treble choir. In the spring, I ran track and was part of the musical cast. I was arts editor of the newspaper, fundraising director of Student Council, and sports editor of the yearbook. I studied for SATs, applied for summer jobs, took driver’s ed, and searched for a prom dress. Maybe you just have more energy when you’re a teenager, but I could never do all of that now. I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

And what was the result? Well, I didn’t have a lot of friends, but I didn’t have a lot of people who disliked me, either. I graduated in the top 5% of my class—18 out of a class of something like 367. I wasn’t a great swimmer (senior year, I missed the sectional cut in 100-yard butterfly by 0.17 seconds), but I was respectable—in fact, a friend of Jackie’s from grad school graduated from my high school two years ahead of me, and when I saw her at a party Jackie invited her to, I was surprised when the first thing she said to me was, “You were on the swim team!” I AP’d out of English and math in college (I passed the AP US history exam, too, but it didn’t get me out of anything). And while no one cares about your SATs after age eighteen, I kind of wish that wasn’t the case, because mine were actually good! (740 verbal, 710 math, and while the writing component didn’t exist back then, I got 790 on my SAT II for writing.)

The real result, though, was that I got into Boston College, and in a lot of ways, I feel like my life didn’t begin until then. For the first time, I started breaking out of the sheltered little bubble I’d grown up in. I met the people who became my best friends. I did activities like chorale because I liked them, not because they’d look good on a resume. I learned things that I still remember now, not things I forgot as soon as finals were over. And I had the time of my life, which I got to relive at my five-year reunion.

Middle school was the miserable kind of time that builds character. College was wonderful. But high school was just a time of my life when I was preparing for something better. Now I’m in the something better—and I see no reason to relive the part of my life when I was preparing for it.

I do have some great memories of high school, though, and one of my favorites is how at the end of our class banquet (an event that had dinner and dancing but was much more casual and less stressful than the prom) we all stayed to the end and formed a circle with our arms around each other as we sang along to our class song, Madonna’s “I’ll Remember.” Even though I’m not there, I wish all the best to the people of the class of 2002. I hope you’re having fun tonight.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0628NtGJAWQ]

7 thoughts on “Why I’m Not At My 10-Year High School Reunion

  1. Liz

    Funny thing is- I don't quite think I'd feel bad not going to my reunions.

    I'm almost at 5 years out of high school- and the biggest thing I did with my life was go to college straight out of high school (culinary arts!) and get engaged to my high school sweetheart.

    I ended up being one of 30 out of the 35 of my remaining classmates dropping out cause the teachers suck! And now I work a job as a kitchen clerk. And it sucks! :/

    As for middle school- I think it was every kid's dream to ruin each other's lives. =P I had surgery in 7th grade and it sucked! I had gone to a new school for all 3 years of middle school and barely had any friends. My 7th grade was the worst because I was right handed and my right arm was in a full arm cast for almost 2 months and I had no friends so I had to balance books on my arm and befriend the teachers. God I hated myself back then! >.< Anyway- I started following you! :) I loved good ole nostalgia blogs!

    A follow for a follow?: http://forevera90skid.blogspot.com/2012/11/gellin-like-felon.html

    Reply
  2. Stephanie

    I agree about high school – for me it was also just a transition time from one thing to the other. So many people gush about how high school was the best years of their life and I never get that. For me my college years were far more influential.

    Reply
  3. SaraBell

    I was homeschooled up to highschool, and my parents sheltered me like crazy. By the time I went to high school it was a culture shock. I didn't even know how to act around kids my own age. My brother became the most popular guy in school, and I was invisible. To this day I am still recognized as his little sister in my home town. I have good and bad memories associated with high school, but it makes me appreciate my life now and the great friends I have. I can understand not wanting to go to your reunion. I will go to my ten year though to prove to those jerks how awesome my life turned out :)

    Reply
  4. New York Cliche

    This will be me in a year! Crazy. Yeah…I think my feelings on going to my high school reunion mirror yours. Also, I live on the opposite side of the country from where I went to high school- that gives me a good excuse not to go. And yet, part of me is curious..

    Reply
  5. Ginny

    My ten year was going to cost $75. No thank you. My friend and I sent out an invite on facebook inviting classmates to meet up at a local bar for free. We had a small but good group of people that I liked from high school. I don't regret missing the actual reunion at all!

    Reply
  6. Gloria

    I went to a pre-reunion party tonight and it was awkward. I begged a friend of mine to come down and keep me company. For the first half hour, a group of classmates whom I’d known for probably 38, 39 years (we went to grade school together) recognized me and we talked a bit, but they were in the popular group, and I wasn’t. They were sharing prom pics, and THAT was super awkward, because I never went. I never dated in high school. I never had a boyfriend until I was 39 years old. So I missed out on the partying, the drinking, the literal screwing around. Men find me repulsive, so it’s pretty impossible to get married and have kids when men hate you. On the flipside, not being married and not having the stress of raising kids, and never drinking/smoking, and no messy divorce means my face has fewer lines and wear and tear. A former classmate actually said I was “beautiful” tonight. (I did have cosmetic surgery less than a month ago on my chin.) Having been called “no chin” in high school and basically told I was ugly probably once a week has made me terrified and resentful of men. Anyway, my friend came down and kept me company for a while, then we went to get a bite to eat. We came back to the venue, but she didn’t want to go back in. I went back in for a few minutes, but left. As someone who feels like she’s starting over at 48, I still feel like the outcast teenager I was back then. Hopefully the actual reunion tomorrow will be better. I was invited by a classmate, so I’m hoping we can keep each other company tomorrow, but we’ll see. I enjoyed your post.

    Reply

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