A lot (and sometimes nothing) can change in 10 years

Saturday was our 10-year high school reunion. Since Brock and I were "high school sweethearts," we have the great advantage that we only ever have to go to a reunion for one class at one school, and we both know everybody because there were only about 87 people in our class.

We drove down to Indiana Saturday afternoon. Thankfully, I got out of class early on Saturday, so we didn't end up being as late to the reunion as we thought we would be. It started at 7 and I think we showed up about 8, after dropping Hannah off with my mom and dad for the evening.

You have to understand that we're from very small towns, and a very small high school. I started school with some of those people in preschool when we were four. What's kind of odd about that is that you can know somebody for 14 straight years, and then completely and utterly lose touch with them in a matter of months (or days or weeks) after graduation. What I really understood from this reunion is that there's a big difference between friends of convenience and friends of choice. When you're from a small town, your pool of potential friends is automatically smaller; there may not be a whole lot of people just like you, so you just do the best you can with what you've got. When you get away from the small town and meet more people, you have more options, and you can find the people you have a lot in common with, who will probably be lifelong friends.

I only have a couple of those "lifelong friends" from high school, and we're not even that close. We manage to stay in touch sporadically and I like to know what's going on with them. But I didn't have a lot in common with most of the people I went to high school with while we were still in school, and it seems like I really don't now. They're all nice people; I think I always did a pretty good job of getting along with everyone. But we weren't ever really great friends.

That said, we did have a good time at the reunion. There were a lot of people I really enjoyed catching up with, swapping kid pictures with, etc. I got to see one of my best friends from high school (one of those I manage to sort of keep in touch with), who I hadn't seen for a long time, and she and I had a lovely time getting really drunk on a bottle of Crown Royal she brought with her. I think this, alone, did a good job of redeeming my reputation as an uptight smart girl with a lot of the non-uptight people I graduated with. :)

Brock had a good time talking to some of his old friends from school, and a depressing time talking to others - that's where the "a lot (and sometimes nothing)" can change comment comes from. Some people were exactly the same, which was fine - they were pretty cool in high school and seem to be doing well. Some people were a bit different, although I wouldn't say anyone had changed enough that there were any shocking developments. And some people were exactly the same, and it wasn't so good. You hoped people would kind of get it together and do well in life...and they didn't.

There were a lot of people I would have liked to see who didn't come, so that was disappointing. And there were a lot of people there who I never talked to much in high school; so I talked to some of them at the reunion, but I would have felt weird running up to a lot of them just because I recognized them and finding out how they were. I was curious, but it's an odd relationship dynamic. It's kind of like, "After 10 years, would you think it was stupid if I came up and talked to you?"

Overall, our reunion was...interesting. I had a lot of fun. I'm really glad we went. And I especially want to thank Lindsey and Amanda, and whoever else worked on planning the reunion, for getting it together so we could actually have one (I don't know if it would have happened otherwise)! But I think I can wait another 10 years before we do it all again.