Reunion Several weeks ago I missed my 25 year high school reunion. Actually, missed is the wrong word. I skipped it. I avoided it. The event was held less than ten miles from my house, and I went out of my way not to go. To be honest, this was the closest I've come to going to one of these reunions. A few weeks prior, I had pulled out my old senior yearbook and spent an afternoon looking through it. I read the messages that were written in the interior cover pages, looked through the team, club, and organization photos. I studied every single one of the over 400 senior pictures in my graduating class, trying to recall anything I could about each of those young people who were now so distant from me in time and space. Naturally, I felt some things. Seeing pictures of classmates who went on to die too young was a sad reminder of how fleeting and precious life is. There was, of course, that sizable population of peers that I just wasn't that interesting in getting to know. I was reminded of all the weird and quirky people I bonded with, the folks who made high school tolerable. And the people that I wanted to keep in touch with? We check in on each other regularly. In the end, sorting out my feelings, I found what I expected to find. I don't want - and I never wanted - to go back. And that's what a class reunion feels like to me: a group exercise in reliving, combined with satisfying that desire that some people have to see where everyone else ended up in life. No, I don't have that desire, either. Faulkner said that "the past is never dead." I disagree. ~nullish Don't look back, you can never look back... --- email blog index website