Ten year high school reunion

Ten years ago I graduated from High School. I was glad to see it in my rear view mirror as I mentally sped away. For ten years I haven't given it more thought than I do navel fuzz. Still...

I was one of those kids stuck in the middle of it all. A hang-around of the cool kids, accepted to a point but not "in" either. And trying far too hard to be "in" to hang with the freaks, losers, and nerds. Looking back now, I realize this alienation was shared by everyone. But at the time I did everything I could to fit in; joined the Fashion Show arrangement group, drank myself silly at every party, beat the crap out of the weights.

Funny enough I never really managed to pull any of it off. I didn't get any cooler as I constantly managed to overcook it subtly. A drink too many, a flippant comment that got taken the wrong way, a chat up line being much less than original. Instead of making myself cool I made myself the fool.

If I think back hard enough, I can feel my ears burning to this day.

A while back an unassuming e-mail landed in my mailbox. "10 Year Anniversary" it said. An unassuming name for such a mailbomb of memories.

Opened up, it contained an invitation to a high school reunion for my class. Prompting memories and faces to pop up. And with them curious thoughts about what people do now, what tragedies and victories they've gone through, where they live. Wondering about who got fat and who got thin. Who made something out of their lives and who got stuck reliving the years of '90-'93 again and again in a world that moved on without them.

It also contained the un-asked question of whether I was ready to find out and to challenge some of the goblins hiding in the past. Some of them are still hiding behind some corner in my brain too, and I'd like to see them gone.

Just when I decided that I'd go, the decision was made for me and against me when the date was set. Work requires me to be in Germany then at an exhibition.

I'll go bust those goblins out of my head another time. At least I have a list of e-mail addresses to quench some of that curiosity with.