Life With Boys

The heat encourages craziness – for me the heat prompted me to get a perm so I didn’t have to dry my hair, buy skinnyish jeans and attend our 20th high school reunion.

We were a class inspired and influenced by the genius of John Hughes movies, who suffered from bad hair choices and even more dire style decisions.  We were also a privileged class given unique opportunities which are not found easily today — if you wanted to be in the school play you showed up and you were in. You could be 4’11” and still be on the basketball team. You could take a zero hour AP class, sing in the choir, join the Wilderness Club and throw the winning touchdown or represent the ski team that afternoon.

A handful of us were fortunate enough to know each other’s secrets, passions and successes as far back as preschool. For others our time together was far shorter, although no less impactful. For that short-time classmate may have introduced us to Def Leppard or Depeche Mode or taught us how to love with our entire heart.

My reunion did not include confessions of unrequited love or astonishing revelations, but it did include a chance to listen, to listen to the stories that have made us who we are today.

None of us has found a cure for cancer, but some of us have beaten it, while many have endured as they watched others lose the battle.

Among us we have taken untraditional jobs, chased entrepreneurial pursuits and adapted to occupations that did not exist when we graduated. We’ve made the decision to become or not to become parents, to balance our passions with our abilities and to sometimes fall flat.

We told stories about “that one time at band camp” and reminisced about the times when you could pile 20 Girl Scouts in the back of a cargo van and head out for adventure.

We relished the short time we had available to fill in what is not posted on Facebook or passed though the coconut telegraph. We heard the stories of courage, of classmates who have learned to say “enough is enough” and of those who have not yet found that kind of strength yet, but will. The stories of dreams achieved and dreams discarded.

We lamented the absence of classmates who could not or did not join us and together we wondered if their absences were circumstantial or by choice.

Together we corrected decades of misconceptions, realigned expectations and realized the astonishing gaps between fact and fiction. We’ve learned that our perceptions are our realities – that the straight-edge skater kid felt just as isolated as the cheerleader adored by many.

Our hugs, smiles and tears were genuine – we’ve learned to forgive past injustices and to accept one another as we struggle to adapt to the uncertain and unpredictable future – in another 10 years some of us may not be here to commemorate the PCHS class of 1992 – only time will tell, but I will be there if you will.