The reunion

My twentieth high school reunion was Saturday night. I had no interest in going to my tenth. I was too busy being a hot-shot fencer and training to be a coach at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs to worry about such useless things. This time around I thought better of it. I had lost my 27 year-old arrogance and pretension. I was curious to revisit my past. To see how everyone else had fared. How well we've all aged and grown. I was proud to show up with my smart, handsome hubby and pictures of my beautiful (ptui, ptui, ptui) kids.

So I bought a new outfit (kiwi green silk blouse, matching hip-hugging skirt, and 2-inch-heeled matching flip flops). I curled my hair (it later wilted like an delicate flower), put on make-up and perfume, and strutted in like everyone else - with something to prove.

The admission was a fortune: $120 for an over-glorified cocktail party with name tags! The meager 10-15% of my graduating class wandered around the loud banquet space squinting at name tags, and looking questioningly at faces.

"Were we in a class together?"

I don't know.

There was a small group of my old band friends (yes, I was a band geek, and damned proud of it!). We huddled together away from the noise and confusion of the old popular crowd who took over the dance floor and bar. We reminisced, wondered about old friends, and caught each other up an our kids and our lives. It was nice seeing familiar faces, people who meant so much to me so long ago. It made me feel connected and disconnected at the same time.

The timing was odd, too. With less than two weeks left here, I am saying hello and goodbye in such a discrete period in time. With a flash of my wilted curls, the "now you see me, now you don't" magical, disappearing act!

Speaking of magic, my house is disappearing into dozens of cardboard boxes. My kitchen is in the process of being bubble wrapped, the sale sign is on the Saturn, and the garage sale is in three days. I'm still spending nights in my office, thank goodness, not to grade. I'm gathering up the loose strings of my life and trying to tie them up into neat little knots like the fringe of a tallit, and praying that I don't forget something important.

Was this all a part of my life?

I don't know.