Last weekend, JC (suffering soul that he is) and I attended a CYO reunion in Baltimore. (Those non-Catholics among you, simply insert "high school church youth group" instead of "CYO") The Catholic Youth Organization was a parish-wide organization for teenagers, that linked to an archdiocesan organization, that was, in turn, part of a national CYO. For all, I know, it may have extended internationally, but who cares? Anyway, some of our old group decided that it might be fun to track down the old crowd (i.e. those members from the 1962-1966 timeframe) and catch up. With the advent of email and Facebook, the task even looked manageable. After all, high school and college reunions happen. People keep in touch with people, and if you could start a chain of people looking for former friends and classmates, finding our old social group might be possible. Anyway, that was the beginning, and we were lucky enough to have some dogged members who were willing to call and email and do all the hard work of finding people. Not everyone, but a fairly representative group.
Saturday night, we all got together for drinks and dinner and dancing to the music of our youth. Some people might obsess about seeing people last encountered 45 years ago, about how they've changed, about how they look, about not having anything in common except 4 years worth of high school dances in the church hall (because that's pretty much what we did.) I wasn't worried about any of that, because, if the truth were told, I'm much happier than I was back then. After 45 years, I'm not pretty. Or thin as I was. I still have two left feet. I still can't throw or catch a softball. Or ride a bike or roller-skate. I never mastered the art of flirting, but I AM happy with my life, largely thanks to a husband who supports me in so many ways--even to attending a gathering where he knows virtually no one.
After 45 years, I also know what's important and what's not. I can talk to anyone about anything. (Some people might say I can talk to a post--not true.) I'm a pretty good cook. I know a lot about getting along with people, and I'm not afraid to speak up or step up when something needs to be done. I can follow, but I can also lead when I have to. People who were there that night have talents too--perhaps ones that the rest of the world doesn't see at first glance, but they are there.
I don't judge as much as I used to. The more you live, the more you realize that people don't have as much control of their choices as we all wish we did. Sometimes, things just happen and you play with the cards you're dealt. Looking around that room Saturday night, I have no doubt that there were people who have experienced almost every sort of joy or tragedy. We've had children and lost them, coped with fractious teenagers and aging parents, dealt with jobs (or the loss thereof) that were more (or less) than we thought we could handle. We've bought houses and cars; we've traveled and stayed at home. We've moved away, and sometimes, come back to the same places. We've made new friends, but kept the old as well.
Reunions bring out a strange phenomenon, I've found. No matter what or who you were years ago, at a reunion, the old class structure slips away. You might have been part of the popular crowd, or you might have been a hopeless nerd, or a clueless jock. You might have been part of the fad and fashion scene, or been on top of the top 40. But somehow, when you get together, you're back on a level playing field. People who wouldn't have given you a glance-- much less a kind word--back then, seek you out and ask about what you're doing, and it is amazing how much they remember about you. It's a revelation to find that you weren't as invisible as you felt then. And even more importantly, nobody cares about the old pecking order, perhaps because it was so artificial to begin with.
We have all learned through the years that the things that count are not all those externals, but the stuff inside: the shared values, the shared experiences, the bedrock of who we were all those years ago. Reunions help us reclaim the ground that we thought was lost when we left that particular arena of our lives.
It's still there, along with the people we can again call friends.
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