25th Non-Reunion

Good evening, DHS alumni, and happy 25th high school non-reunion. Tonight we are not standing under balloon arches, not reliving the "Around the World in One Night" senior prom, not ambling through the lower commons with wonder that we made it out of here alive. 

Of course we're not discussing what didn't happen at the aborted 10-year reunion, when too few of us were interested in coming home - or too many of us never left. We're not discussing whether social media or this town, small and rural and cliquish even then, was the death of that get-together. Both can be black holes if you're not paying attention.

I'm enjoying not lingering by the punch bowl and not talking about the eerie red eye of the purple and white bronco on the wall - the eye which, after a football win, glowed on the horse head that lacked any curves just like me. I'm not telling you these are real and they're fabulous.

It's a pleasure not to walk down the 100 Hall, the 200 Hall, or memory lane with people who never really were my friends. I'm not snickering about that time Mrs. Hines did some head-banging to Offspring at her lectern while singing "gotta keep 'em separated," or Mr. Mayhood slapping the rolling TV during "My Fair Lady." I can't recall why we were watching a musical in history class anyway. 

That conversation won't segue into remembering Mr. Mayhood's performance - did it include a container of Tide? - at a pep rally in the old gym right over there. The band sat up against the wall of the stands back then, playing The Horse, but I don't remember the dance that went with it. 

I've forgotten so much that seemed so important then, including why I wanted so badly to be an adult.

Tonight I'm not paging through the senior year book I never bought because I didn't care to memorialize that year I spent mostly in foster care, and we're won't reminisce about the time we sat in a circle on Mr. Gunter's classroom floor and read "Oh The Places You'll Go," because we never really did. 

Life isn't the nonstop adventure in freedom we thought it would be when we broke out of high school. It's been mostly working and waiting - which, to be fair, Dr. Seuss warned us we'd do quite a lot. 

Except for those of us who haven't, like Scotty who never saw the truck coming. We won't talk about his funeral, which we solemnly attended so soon after walking triumphantly across the stage in cap and gown. There won't be a place to remember what we've lost other than the cemeteries and maybe our childhood homes, if they're still standing.

By the end of the night we won't vote for distinctions like "most changed" and "most successful" and "least likely to remember what you called me." We won't slow dance to our class song where Sarah McLachlan warbles about remembering, and there'll be no sitting through a photo slideshow of now versus then so we won't see who's been knocked down, what's been built over, and where was finally painted purple after all those years of being wrong.

If you came here to hear the middle, the tantalizing arc, of all the stories we started 25 years ago, I'm sorry. Tonight is not your night.

I hope you're somewhere else this evening instead of this town that felt like the center of the universe at 17. I hope you've grown up, changed your hair, dropped the H in broncho, and left the good old boys and cheerleaders behind. 

There is more for you than here.