Water Under the Bridge - Post Reunion Blog

I started writing this blog as I sat on the plane traveling home from my 20^th High School Reunion.  I finished it 6 days later.  If you read my previous blog entry, then you know I went to this event with a great deal of apprehension.  The prospect of going home after twenty years and being thrown into a social situation with people with whom you first developed your social “self,” with whom you developed your life goals and dreams, with whom you shared all of the awkward and embarrassing moments of adolescence was terrifying.  It brought to surface all of my insecurities and doubts.  And then I wrote about them in a very public blog and asked people to read it.  It was, in a way, a defense mechanism.  Kind of like making fun of yourself before others can make fun of you.  It was cathartic and disarming and apparently not so unique.  The feedback I received both directly on the blog and later in person was overwhelming.   It turns out I was not alone in the feelings I had.

I hoped that the weekend would provide some great epiphany, or that some outrageous events would ensue to give me fodder for a full recap, or at least for a semi-cogent bookend to the prior entry.  But as I sit here in seat 5C, I don’t see them yet. I will say my brain is not working optimally at this moment as I am working on very little sleep and my liver is in a remotely familiar place trying to process out the alcohol which served its purpose as a social lubricant.  I think the best approach is to start with a play by play and see if as I write and recollect anything compelling percolates to the surface. (Click here if you want to read that more detailed trip report – some funny stuff here)

Is the 20^th high school reunion the great equalizer? Has enough water passed under the bridge?  Have wounds healed? Have crushes faded? Have we toughen up enough?  Have we softened up enough?  Have friendships that were based on ‘real’ things stood the test of time?  Have petty differences built on youthful ignorance faded away?  Have we had enough life experience to understand what is truly important?  After an extended highly scientific analysis I have determined that we can say with some confidence that for 97.43% of people the answer is YES. 

Below you will find a few random insights that I ended up taking away from the weekend.

5^th and 10^th year reunions are about sizing other people up.  It is still about me.  How do I stack up?  How do other people view me?  Will people see me as successful?  We still needed that external validation.  But now, with 20 years under our belts, I felt we were more concerned to find out how other people were doing.  We needed to know others were in a good place, happy and healthy.  We no longer needed or were looking for validation, we know where we are without anyone telling us.  We have made our mistakes, we have had our successes and we survived both.  We have had our own children and we have moved from being young parents to being parents of teens and preteens who we are trying to guide through their insecurities, rather than being concerned with our own.

I will openly admit I was concerned with my appearance.  I did put in the hours in the gym and I did get my hair cut (the little I have left) before the reunion.  Maybe I haven’t out grown my vanity.  I know I was not alone in wanting to see who had put on a few and we all sized up the spouses of our middle and high school crushes.  But let’s all also admit that there were some late bloomers who turned some heads when they walked though the doors.  We wanted to look good, but we didn’t need to be cool.  Maybe our concern for appearance is more stress over aging than it is about fitting in and looking cool. 

One thing I learned this weekend is that there is growing up and there is growing older.  We have all grown older, except for Billy Coulter and Meredith Meadow both of whom must have made some deal with the Devil or have possession of some high tech time machine that allowed them to turn up at the reunion looking like they just walked out of graduation.  We all have added a few pounds, wrinkles, and spouses.  Many of us have lost hair, jobs, and … spouses.  With every year gone we have gained life.  We are accumulating experiences both good and bad that we build upon. 

Growing up is different.  I don’t think everyone grows up.  I think we all know someone we wish would grow up and others that we are glad never seemed to.  Keeping a young outlook, staying spontaneous and playful are all the good parts of not “growing up”  or maybe I should call this staying young at heart.  I feel that teaching has -- on some level -- allowed me to stay young (though my aching back, knees and shoulders would disagree).  But refusing to take responsibility, living in the past and holding onto those youthfully ignorant perceptions, that is the bad kind of not growing up.

The other thing I was reminded of this weekend was that we don’t always know the affect we have on people.  I had more than one conversation over the weekend in which someone recounted a story -- that I hardly remembered -- where something I had done or said had affected them in a fairly big way.  To me at the time, it was no big deal (thus the vague memory).  And I am sure that some of my big deal moments in life barely registered for people who greatly affected me.  And while the recollections recounted to me this weekend were positive in nature, it makes me wonder about the times I hurt people and didn’t even know it.  I am glad to know that a moment of courtesy or kindness over 20 years ago was remembered.  I just hope that there were more of those moments than ones defined by callousness or insensitivity.  The lesson I take away is to always be kind and never discount how the small things can affect those around us -- even when we are not aware.

I wish the weekend would have provided me with something more provocative, something more insightful.  But from my personal experience, which is all I can confidently speak from, I will say that it was nice.  It was not terrible.  It was not scary (after the fact).  I had some great conversations with some great people.  It was wonderful to reconnect with old friends.  I really had regretted that I had lost contact with a few of my very good friends.

I love my life in Dallas, Texas, but I could still see myself living back in Columbia.  Could I go back home?  Do we ever leave?  I know I will always have a place where I belong there and part of me has never left.  But home?  Home is where my family is.  Home is now a small corner in west Plano, and I am happy to be landing soon to the hugs of my wife and kids. 

I wish I had a bit longer to visit, and I hope it will be less time before I return.  To my fellow classmates, the Spring Valley Vikings Class of 1990, I wish only Love, Peace and Happiness.  Cheers.

Three quick postscripts: 

1. A big kudos to Kelley, Ferris and everyone else who helped plan and pull off the reunion. THANK YOU!

2.  For a much more witty Post Reunion recaps visit the blogs of my very good friends The Other Kevin Ginsberg and Marty Simpson

3.  Please feel free to comment below.  I know that many of you are much better equipped than me to expound upon this weekend and what it meant.

20 Years and Counting

Do we ever really grow up?  Can we ever really go home?  Or maybe the question is do we ever really outgrow our insecurities we encountered in our youth? 

You may wonder what brought this up.  Why am I asking these questions now?  Well, at the end of this week I head home to Columbia, South Carolina for my 20^th high school reunion.  As the date gets closer I am feeling more and more anxious.  All of the insecurities, all of the doubts, all of the confusion, all of the promise, all of the dreams I had as a teenager seem to be coming back to me in some weird non-drug induced flashback. 

I will be seeing people I’ve known most of my life, but haven’t seen in 20 years.  Old friends, old rivals, old flames, old teammates, people who long ago were too good for me, and people I could have been nicer to when I had a chance.  Most of us came from modest means. Some had more than others, but when we were in the sand box at Windsor United Methodist Preschool and Windsor Elementary we knew very little of social differences and standing.  We just played super heroes and took naps listening to the “Sound of Music” soundtrack.  We played kickball, hated square dancing in PE and lived for field day.  We had everything in front of us and our parents assured us we were destined for big things.  We progressed through middle school (shout-out to the E.L. Wright Warriors) and started to develop our different talents and personalities.  We all went through that awkward stage (some of us more awkward than others) and we realized that we all weren’t equal.  Some stood out as smart, athletic, artistic, socially adept and others of us seemed to stay in the background.  It was an interesting time to grow up, in a fairly sheltered and mundane part of the world. 

The materialistic 80’s was the backdrop for our formative years.  We were raised on MTV and John Hughes movies made it painfully clear that our lives were not nearly as cool as those rich kids in the Chicago suburbs.  We believed in Reaganomics and Duran Duran.  We went retro with Zeppelin and progressive with the Cure.  We watched the shuttle explode and the Wall come down.  We went from thinking our parents could do no wrong to being certain that our parents knew nothing and couldn’t possibly understand.  Ours was a time when there seemed to be a lull in controversy.  We were winners of the cold war as the Soviet Union embraced capitalism.  We had no war to protest (except the war on drugs).  The economy was growing.  Computers became personal.  It was the “me generation.”

And Columbia, South Carolina was a sleepy town, without much excitement.  Carolina football and the State Fair, soccer leagues, and little league, weekends at the lake, vacations to Myrtle Beach, and homecoming floats were the highlights of each year.  We knew there was a bigger world out there but we weren’t that interested in seeing it.

As we entered Spring Valley High School we knew we were going to close out a decade of decadence (thinly veiled musical reference) as the graduating class of 1990.  And we were going to take over the world, or something along those lines.  We were successful.  We passed tests.  We performed.  We won championships - or came close (I do know the farther in the past it gets the better we were).  An exciting night out was going to “Whiteroads” to park after a football game.   We would listen to music, try to get up the nerve to talk to that girl.  Some would drink beer.  Others would smoke.  I would… well… be the designated driver.   At some point someone (usually of the redneck persuasion) would start a short-lived fight, the police might come and we would scramble.  Ah, those were some memorable nights.

For a few years after we lived on our past accomplishments.  We relived the glory days (musical reference) of our high school success.  Then we realized that everyone else at college had similar stories.  We weren’t overly special.  We were fairly ordinary.  But our parents and teachers had told us we were going to make a difference. 

That realization begs the question: how? How are we going to stand out?  What will we really accomplish?  How will we make an impact on the world?

So what did we become? What were we supposed to become? Did we live up to our potential? Did we live up to expectations? 

Notice how I keep using the pronoun “we” when I should be using “I.”  I don’t presume to be speaking for anyone else.  I am so intimately acquainted with these anxieties, that I find it hard to believe I’m alone.  But these questions are mine alone to answer.

What did I become? What was I supposed to become? Did I live up to my potential? Did I live up to expectations? 

Now it is twenty years later and what are we?  What am I?  I know how I saw myself in high school.  I underachieved or rather, I fell short.  Socially, I felt always on the fringe, through no one’s fault but my own.  Academically, I was in the top group but not near the top of that group.  Athletically, I fought and uphill battle against inferior genetics to gain a modest level of success (sorry Mom and Dad, but come on, look at what I was working with).  And artistically, I had no real interest or talent (except poetry that in retrospect was pretty bad).  But I had high hopes, high expectations, high standards, I was going to be….. something.

So what am I now, as I go back home?  As I go back the place that so greatly influenced who I was and have become, I realize I am what I always was.  A teacher, a coach, a father, a friend, who still has a long way to go.  A boy, now a man that still has promise, that still has dreams, that certainly still has insecurities, but with a perspective that what we have accomplished is seen in the people around us that we affect.

I left South Carolina after graduating and it would be wrong to say that I never looked back, because I do look back.  I look back fondly.  I look back with a bit of melancholy.  I went off to Duke to pursue “bigger things”, then headed to Atlanta to experience the big city (albeit too afraid to leave the comfort of the southeast), and now I am living the suburban life in Plano, Texas (Dallas).  (I shuttle kids to and from soccer practice, but at least I avoided the mini-van.)

I am proud of where I came from.  It made me who I am today.  Though simple and slow, life in South Carolina in the 70’s and 80’s surrounded by the people in my life gave me something.  It gave me a belief in others.  It gave me a perspective that allows me today to give everyone a chance, to not judge too quickly, to show compassion, to help, to understand that hard work is rewarded.  It taught me the lessons, both good and bad that I have built on year after year. 

So who am I?  What did I become?  What great things did I do?  Nothing that will make the history books..

I will not cure cancer.  I will not ensure world peace.  I will not feed all the starving children.  I will not travel in space.  I will not play in the World Cup.  I will not write a best seller (though one day I may get around to trying).  But….one of my students might.  One of my children might.  I am a teacher and a father.  I strive only to be a good and thoughtful person. I strive to be honest, kind, and trustworthy.  At times I fail in even these modest goals. 

I have accomplished some things.  I was a collegiate wrestler but not a very successful one.  I received my degree in neuroscience from Duke, but have not really put that knowledge to use.  I married, have two great kids, got divorced, remarried and now have two great step-daughters.  I have coached state championship soccer teams and taught hundreds of eager minds in AP Biology and AP Psychology classes.  I have made great friends and recently lived a dream of playing cards against the best.  But I’m not done.  I think there is more in front of me. 

With all of the insecurities, with all of the self-doubt, with all of the expectations, I still have promise.  I don’t know what it is, but maybe when my 40^th high school reunion comes around I’ll have tales to tell.

I hope that anyone who reads this entry will leave a comment.  Maybe your thoughts on reunions, going home, living up to expectations, or redefining what is success.  Any and all are welcome.  Next week I hope to reflect on things post reunion event.  Thanks for reading.