Unlike my stamina, reunions get better with age...

Wow, what a week.  I do not think I picked up "James Dean" once the entire time.  But playing "hard to get" is good on occasion, keeps the interest level up.  Which brings me right back to my absence...my high school reunion.  Okay SOMETIMES pulling out the "hard to get" card worked in 1977, and other times it was an abysmal failure.  Right up there with polyester and Aquanet.  Blah, blah, blah...yes I was reminded of that with a few reunion sightings Saturday night.  A seventeen year old's judgement isn't always spot on, just sayin'.

This past week, my BFF flew in from Chicago and stayed with me for a few days.  We kvetched, we laughed, we shopped, we drank wine, we laughed some more.  I even subjected her to a spin class where I work out (sorry girl, but you KNOW it was for a good cause and your red face ultimately did fade).  And we also managed to fit in commiserating over our better-halves, the male gender in totality, expanding waist lines, and our shrinking fashion choices as we hit that "no woman's land" of appropriateness that falls somewhere between Lindsay Lohan and Betty White.  In my next life I am going to design a clothing line called "Not Your Grandma's Closet".

When all was said and done, we hit our 35th high school reunion.  And quite honestly, had a blast despite all our trepidations.  Apparently high school anxieties aren't left behind with the Bunson Burners and ugly gym uniforms.  It was quite a cacophony of personalities and life experiences.  I have always suspected that one should never underestimate the ties of a shared history.  Which includes the collective breathing in of the daily stench of sitting in an open windowed classroom  that sits directly across the street from the town sewage plant.   What didn't kill us apparently made us stronger AND buy enough Charlie perfume and Hai Karate cologne to mask the stench.

As in every group that gets together, there were some who certainly have faced what seems to be more than their fair share of obstacles and losses in their lives.  Yet not only have they endured with beauty and grace,  but they literally shine.  I am left in awe and wonder.

And we have also lost members along the way.  Some we have lost physically due to illness.  Some we have lost  due to never having felt the connection or desire to maintain ties to this part of their lives.  And it was as if a piece of us was missing.  As we get older it is natural that a group will dwindle for a variety of reasons.  It reminds me of the dandelion globes I use to blow in the spring  fields while asking the fates "He loves me?  He loves me not?"  If I blew that globe free of seeds the answer was a good one.  If not...it wasn't looking so hot for me. I would watch the individual pieces dance away in the breeze as they caught the sunlight  in search of a new home.  A new place to land.  Dispersed to the fates.  Landing in places and circumstances unknown. Yet hopefully taking root and prospering.  A definite metaphor for life, but at the time...I just wanted a date for Saturday night so I didn't seem pathetic sitting home watching a "Love American Style" rerun.

A reunion is a reminder that no matter how life has blown us on our way and placed us throughout the world on our individual journeys...we all originally came from that same dandelion globe.

That is a shared experience that will always bind us to a certain extent.  And I have come to recognize THAT is a beautiful thing.  Eau d' Sewage Plant and all.

--Kathy