I was talking to a friend of mine about the fact that my high school class didn’t have a reunion this year, which would have been our 30th. (I’m old; shut up.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since we were a small class, and (I thought) relatively tight knit, I thought something was going to happen, or something would be planned, I would get the notice, and I’d fly out to particiapte. That was a no from them, dawg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I talked to my friend (who I went to high school with) about why and how this happened. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
My high school years were fraught with chronic masturbation, a growth spurt, a lot of introspection, and a stable home life punctuated by hormonal outbursts, but it wasn’t problematic because of high school itself. I learned a ton. I wrote, read, experienced the highs of understanding trig and calculus and the lows of not understanding chemistry at ALL. I navigated the social waters by being friends with all the cliques, and never felt out of place amongst a group of people, from the nerds to the jocks and outcasts. I obsessed over girls, and perfected my need to be liked because, my thinking went, if I was liked, then I wouldn’t go through the hell that was middle school, where a number of people saw it their mission to destroy my self esteem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Anyway, what has happened in the years since was the realization that a lot of people didn’t have it like I did. I was surprised when I heard from people I had hung out with that they hated high school. My mind reeled; I was there! I was around you for high school! What happened? <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thing is, some people hated the time, not high school itself. Oh, I’m sure there were people who hated high school; the homework, the wondering if one was good enough or belonged in a school where nerdom was the standard rather than an anomaly. But no one said these things to me then. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So, no reunion, and another reason I had to think about; 90% of my class still lives in Southern California, and they can see each other whenever they feel like it. I need a few weeks advance notice; these people can make plans within hours. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Add tot hat a realization that hurts, but, as my friend says, it is what it is<\/em>. No one is checking for us like that. No one’s checking on us. No one’s thinking about us coming out there. If they see us, great, but no one I went to school with is trying to see me like that. No one’s coming to see you, Otis<\/em> as the joke goes. And they’re not. And I have to accept that and keep it moving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I find it kinda effed that the class before us did a reunion (which I happily crashed) and we’ll see what the class after us does, but our makeup and circumstances point towards not being what I thought, or fooled myself into thinking, that we were all friends forever or something.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We’re all adults trying to figure things out, I guess. Nothing wrong with that. But it huts a little bit, you know?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was talking to a friend of mine about the fact that my high school class didn’t have a reunion this year, which would have been our 30th. (I’m old; shut up.) Since we were a small class, and (I thought) relatively tight knit, I thought something was going to happen, or something would be […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-454","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-commentary"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=454"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":455,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/454\/revisions\/455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=454"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=454"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tallblackguy.com\/write\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=454"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}