Class of 2003

This weekend is my ten-year high school reunion. While I feel social media has helped reunions go the way of the VHS tape, I still can't help feeling nostalgic, pensive and proud. It's kind of awesome to belong to a group of individuals with something as singular and random as graduating the same high school. It is a odd and excellent thing to celebrate.  But then, we're an odd and excellent group.  

Movies and TV shows depict high school reunions as a place of petty, malicious, see who's now ugly, fat or a failure kinds of affairs. However, much like my high school experience, I find that, coming up on the reflection of the last 10 years to be anything but those gritty thoughts.

Sure, high school was challenging. It wasn't always the place we wanted to be. We all had that girl we wished would just get flattened while cow tipping. All had that one boy who never looked in our direction once, let alone twice. That unfair teacher. That haunting school picture with the frizz and the braces.

But we all had that partner in crime. Perhaps that one moment that outshines the crap. One inspiration. One day that makes us nostalgic for cookies at break and our decorated hall lockers.

It was such a huge part, and at the same time, such a small period of time in our lives. It shaped who we were when we first faced the world. It showed us life wasn't fair. It set the scene for first intense loves and equally as painful partings. There were questionable fashion choices and even worse music. But in the 10 years since, it has diminished in importance and luster, making way for new dreams, new friends, new life.

Funny how our ideals change. We, who once fantasized about being famous, in a band, on Broadway an astronaut, the president, now find the dreams we dream are perhaps of smaller scale but just as vivid and real. We dream of family, true love, travel, creative release, freedom, purpose and simple, pure happiness. I see so many of those dreams coming true for those I knew back when we were all still growing into who we would one day be.

I look around at the people I admired and I still do. I look for those I expected greatness of and see it. I look at myself, who I was and who I've become, who I could be, and I smile. It's that sweet spot, people. We've had some life, we've learned some things. We can grow from here. The potential is endless.

Like the song goes, "the more you need the people you knew when you were young." Growing up in a small town provided us an incredible (though I doubt many of us felt it while we were there) gift of home, of people to return to when we're feeling too rattled by the world, of friends regardless of distance or days between calls. Where we come from and who we knew back then will always be with us. 

We're an odd and excellent group.