Catching Up With Old Enemies

OK, maybe they weren't really enemies. But they certainly weren't friends. Frenemies. I'm talking about the people you went to school with. Not the ones you ate lunch with, copied homework from or sneaked a Friday night beer with. I'm talking about the faces you passed in the halls every day, year after year. The kid who sat next to you in your 5th hour class who scraped your nerves like a cheese grater. The one who everyone thought was a geek, a nerd, a dweeb, a princess, a jock.....god, this is starting to sound like movie someone made once.

Now flash forward 5 years, 10 years, 15 years, 30 years....Who are those people now? I'm getting in touch with people I haven't seen since high school. People I've never talked to before. Certainly not when we were actually in high school together. I had no time for these people then. So why is now, when my life is as busy as it has ever been do I feel the need to reconnect with these people? It's class reunion time. It's looming in the near future. This morbid curiosity we all possess that makes us want to see these people again just to see who has succeeded. Who's done better than me? Who remembers me? Who is not with us anymore?

I'm not usually the sentimental type. I've not kept in touch with these people. None of them. High school ended. I moved on to college, jobs, career, relationships, real life. I moved out of state - more than once. I left it all behind me. Yet somehow, every few years it manages to pull me back for just a peek. Somehow, no matter far your high school years are behind you, you still measure yourself to those same kids. The geek, the nerd, the dweeb, the princess, the jock, the scary girl who dressed all in black and had a pet rat.

I've ignored these invites in the past always. Who needs to look back? I'm a forward-looking person. But this year I have decided to succumb to the need to glimpse back at my past. Reconnect with people who surprisingly really don't grate on my nerves anymore. They aren't those labels anymore. They are people. They have careers, families, hobbies and fun memories. So I imagine we will talk about now, share memories of past and share a beer that we don't have to sneak anymore.And when I am done, I will walk away again. Thoughts firmly centered on the now and the tomorrow.

And I will still think that my 6th hour creative writing teacher looked like a female Gene Simmons. Some things can't change.