Why You Should Go to Your Ten Year High School Reunion.

{Summer 2002: My bestest high school girlfriends, about a week before we all left for college}

{Thanksgiving Weekend 2012: Before our 10 year high school reunion; down 1 due to California to Detroit travel length}

I have been meaning to write this post for almost a year, since I attended my 10 year reunion last Thanksgiving weekend.  As I know Thanksgiving has become a really popular time for reunions (C's is this weekend! - I'm such a cougar), perhaps my procrastination was serendipitous :)

So, why do I think you should go?  Because I'll bet you'll have fun.  Because it will surprise you.  Because you will have an unexpectedly pleasant encounter with at least one person, and it will make you leave thinking, "I'm glad I went."  Because no one else knows what those four years of your life were like but the other people in your graduating class, and camaraderie means a lot.  Because all the hang-ups you still have swirling in your subconscious from that time in your life can be embraced, and then (hopefully) released. 

High school experiences vary drastically, obviously.  I went to a suburban Detroit public high school (that Madonna attended btw - British accent my a**), with a graduating class of about 450.  We had our cliques and our stereotypes and our separate groups of friends, but it also wasn't impossible to find a lot of cross-over and well-rounded, good people.  It felt good to see that hadn't changed.  There were still mean girls and a**holes in attendance, but - and here's the key - it's a lot easier to ignore them now.

I am also lucky to have an amazing group of high school girlfriends who I still consider my best friends.  Yes, it was easier to walk into the reunion as a group of six, and if you can convince lots of your friends to go, all the better.  We live across the country (actually the world, one of us is in Munich!) from each other, and so the reunion was the perfect excuse to catch-up and get a little drunk together. 

I know it's really easy to say "Facebook keeps me updated on everyone, I don't need to know anything else about these people," or the enticing excuse, "If I haven't stayed friends with them over the last 10 years, why would I want to see them now?  There was probably a reason."

Well.  Turns out, in-person experiences are far superior to online ones.  You'll find out that so-and-so and so-and-so happened to move to neighboring towns in Colorado, and even though they rarely talked in high school, they reconnected and hang out together now.  You'll love hearing that other people have remained friends like you have.  You'll be surprised by how much you have in common with someone.  You'll meet fiancés and husbands and wives of acquaintances you always liked but never became close with for whatever reason, and you'll be glad to hear about their lives.  If all else fails, grab another drink with the people you came with and spend more time with them.     

I do appreciate that there are many valid reasons for not wanting to voluntarily be in the same room as your high school classmates, but I encourage you to think about it.  Face those fears, accept the challenge, all that good stuff, and enjoy precious time with old friends.    

xo. di.

*images property of Diane Crary