I am in the midst of helping to plan my high school class's thirty-year reunion. First, let me get out of the way the obvious: No way am I old enough to even HAVE a thirty-year reunion. As everyone else says at this stage in their lives: I don't FEEL 48, I feel 2? in my heart! And I do believe 50 is the new 40ish. I look at pictures of my grandmother at my age and it was a whole different hairstyle paradigm . . . !
But the truth is, I am going to be 48 in just six short weeks, and in May it will be 30 years since I walked down the aisle to "Pomp and Circumstance," not having a clue what I was going to do with my next week, let alone the rest of my life.
Sure, I was signed up for the local community college. And my mom had impressed on me how useful the legal secretary program ("You can use those shorthand skills the rest of your life!" Hmmmm . . . ) would be to me. So I had a "plan." But in reality, I couldn't have been more uninvolved or clueless about next steps.
I was uninvolved and clueless about most everything in my life. Honestly, when I have looked back at my junior and senior high years, mostly what I have done inside is cringe.
It's not that I didn't have friends. I did. (Special shout-out to Lorrie, who has refused to let me "go silently into the night"!) It's not that I didn't have fun at dances (although I never was asked to, nor did I attend, a prom) (which means there are no pictures of me out there in Gunny Sax dresses and the like) and parties and in classes. Because I was invited to a few parties, and I did go to a few dances, and I have some great memories of classmates in specific classes.
But I was just not that self-aware and mature back then, and I made a *lot* of choices that I would go back and do differently, if I could. Fortunately, God has that covered now. But still. I had a difficult relationship with honesty (read, I lied about dumb things), I didn't force myself to make (the sometimes hard) decisions that would develop my character. I really didn't have a good sense of
self.
Now having said all that, it's not something that I dwell on these days. I was fortunate that I had a mom who got me out of town by *strongly* encouraging me to join a theater company. I got to travel and live all over the world. I am conversant in a second language. I have good friends on all but one continent. I toured Dachau, I wrote on the Berlin Wall, I cried with Nigerian children, I married, divorced, finished college and most of a graduate degree, married again, had a child . . . I grew up and I am maturing.
But out of five high school reunions, I have gone back for two (another shout-out to Lorrie). Why? Because I was afraid that I would be seen as Who-I-Was rather than K
ïrsten-Who-I-Am-Now. I *felt* that if I heard one person call me "Bananas" or remind me how I created alternate realities about myself (and dragged others into my pretend world) or how I was morally less than I would like to admit, I would just die. So I stayed away . . . until the 15-year reunion.
Now, a great ending to this post would be, all my fears were unrealized and it was the best! reunion! ever! But reality is seldom one extreme or the other. Reality is that I walked in and a classmate's spouse's first words to me were about one of the most painful things that happened to me in high school. It was a good thing that Brett and Sondra had picked me up and Brett had the keys; otherwise, I might have turned tail and bolted. But, I was stuck--and that was good, because I learned a couple things.
First, I didn't die. My face got a little red and I struggled for the words that would stop that particular line of conversation without being sarcastic or dissolving into a puddle of tears. I smiled and said something I honestly can't remember and walked away.
Second, it turns out I was more than fine after the exchange, and I discovered that I get to decide if I am fine or if I am not.
Third, I had some amazing conversations with people that I probably hadn't given two seconds of thought to during our whole school experience--I got to right my own wrongs! I won't name the people, but we have really great people in our class, and I had missed out on 15 years of getting to know them as who they are, not as how I had esteemed them all those years before.
So the 15-year reunion was a lot like life is: some pain, some joy, and a lot that I don't remember because it was just an evening of moving from one conversation to the next. It was good. And the 25th went much the same way. Again, I was confronted with something I would have preferred to leave back where it belonged, but again: it was five minutes out of many hours of great conversation, reconnection, and fun. Plus, I got to dance with Mary Rewerts Schaeffer, and that makes everything good!
As I have been contacting my classmates, trying to get updated information, etc., I have been surprised at how many people have stayed away for similar reasons. And I've heard some sad stories from people who are afraid to be seen as they were rather than as they are. I ache for each one, because I know that two things are true: first, they will continue to be seen as who they were at the last point of contact until others get a chance to get to know them now; and two, only they can make the decision to put that behind them and give people new information.
It reminds me of what's called the greatest chapter in the Bible, the Love Chapter, 1 Corinthians 13:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a[n] [adult], I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
I have a choice when it comes to the reunion: I can stay stuck in my childhood, fearing what others think of me or what they might say or do, OR (and I love the alternative), I can put away childish things and be who I am now: a woman who has regrets but isn't enslaved by them, who makes mistakes but isn't defined by them--a grateful wife and mom, and a good friend to people who have *grown up* with me.
And of course, I choose to see my classmates as they are now,
because that is what adults do. We know that we won't know each other or ourselves fully, ever. Only God fully knows me, or you. Now that's something to be thankful for!
So, putting away childish things, I am going to my 30-year high school reunion with anticipation in my heart and a commitment to welcome everyone and get to know each one anew . . . And to dance, of course!
What a privilege!
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