You CAN Go Home Again

This past weekend I attended my 40^th high school reunion. That’s right. 40 years. Incredible. I’d never been to a high school reunion. The Facebook invites went out about a year ago and I immediately responded, YES. Before Facebook there were few options for finding many people. Many of us moved from our old towns. Phone numbers were changed.

I couldn’t wait to be out of high school. My senior year was spent in a performing arts school for half the day. I was involved in the school musicals and of course the music department. I didn’t go to school events. I was busy with music lessons and performances. I never went to the senior prom. I had a gig that night.

During the course of this year, people from high school started friending each other on Facebook. Some of us did it well before the invites went out. Searching for a time when things were simpler. A reminiscence of who we were. A nostalgic yearning for the 1970’s.

I became Facebook friends with classmates that I was never friends with during my high school years. It didn’t matter. We all came from the same place and that made it real.

When I was diagnosed in February I was determined not to let this interfere with the reunion. After finishing chemo I became nervous. What if I didn’t have the energy to travel to NY? What if I was in pain? What if I was too tired to do anything? One of our classmates mentioned that she was nervous about the reunion. I was nervous about my body falling apart.

I was also apprehensive about people seeing me for the first time in 40 years that knew nothing about my health issues. Would they wonder why I was wearing a turban? Most people seemed to get it and one old friend said, “OK, so what exactly is going on here?”

A lot of people came up to me and said they’ve been reading my blog. I was kind of taken back. Wow. I really had no idea who was reading my blog. I do post the link onto Facebook and Twitter each time I post to blogspot.

And what of the reunion? We couldn’t get enough of each other. We wanted more time. We wanted to talk until the sun came up and many did. We took pics and posted them to Facebook. We decided not to wait 10 years for the next reunion. 10 years. Gawd. We’ll be so old. Who wants to wait THAT long? So we went for 5. That seems reasonable enough. If you had asked me 10 years after high school to attend a reunion, I would have scoffed at the idea. And now? I’d do it every 2 years. Not only to remember the past, but to look at all of us and see how far we’ve come. We are amazing.

General Douglas MacArthur Class of 1974, we totally rock!!!

This is dedicated to all of you with lots of love!