I'm at home in Saskatoon right now visiting family. Last Saturday, I attended a mini "reunion" with my elementary school friends. Yes, that's right, I said my elementary school friends. I bet not very many of you have had a reunion with your elementary school friends, now have you?
First off, I have to say for all the times I don't like Facebook, our little reunion wouldn't have been possible without Facebook. I am quite certain that the majority of us who did show up would not have known where each other were if it weren't for Facebook, so I guess the program does have a few good things about it, doesn't it?
Now, again, I say "reunion" very loosely. It ended up being about 10 of us and 1 teacher from our grade 8 class getting together. The group of them toured our old school in the morning, but we were just travelling to Saskatoon on Saturday, so I didn't attend that part. I caught up with them for drinks at a local pub in the evening.
I have to admit, throughout the afternoon, I was contemplating not going at all. You see, back in elementary school, I wasn't one of the cool kids. You'd think I would have gotten over that after almost 20 years, but I don't think it really ever leaves you completely.
But, I told myself that I was successful and I did well for myself and I should go and catch up with everyone else!
I had butterflies in my stomach as I walked up to the pub. Can you believe it? I mean these were kids that I met almost 30 years ago! It took only a few minutes of stepping inside and I felt like I went back 18 years, in good and bad ways.
Of course we have all somewhat grown up and everyone seemed genuinely happy to see each other. A reunion, in the 2 that I've been to, seems to bring out two groups of people: the really popular ones and the really nerdy ones. The ones in between usually don't show up. Me? I don't want to think I fell into the really nerdy category, but I sure wasn't really popular either! I guess I'm one of the few inbetweens who showed up.
We ended up having some great chats and gossiping about everyone in our class and where they were today and what they were doing. We talked about the things that used to go on in elementary school, some of which I never remember actually hearing about!
The first observation that I thought I made was that nobody ever really changes. The popular girl still showed up looking all popular, the funny guys were still cracking stupid jokes like they were still 13, the weird, quiet kid who always used to stare at me still stared at me and still gave me the creepies and the nerdy one still lives at home, and the good student, good girl image that I used to protray couldn't leave me either, no matter how hard I tried.
But I was wrong: After 20 years, the popular girl was chatting with everyone, the funny guys were chatting with everyone, the weird, quiet kid even talked with eveyrone and the nerdy kid chatted with everyone. Even though at first glance it seemed as though we were all the same, we've all grown up and I think we've realized how silly all of those labels once were.
We all had fun and I left with hugs and email addresses and a feeling of being one in the same.... finally.
Hey, like the new look. That website is awesome.
ReplyDeleteI basically went through the same thing at my HS reunion. And you are right, it was primarily the really popular or the ones you never knew existed. I wasn't one of the uber popular kids. I was mor like knocking on the door. All the same, it was a fun night. Glad you enjoyed yours.