Reunited

For those of you who haven't experienced it yet, I wish I could convey the utter weirdness of going to your 10 year high school reunion. Mild butterflies in your gut as you approach the doors. Numerous faces only vaguely familiar and tangentially connected somewhere deep in the subconscious. Ten years of divorce, marriage, higher education, failure, and riches wedged into hasty, five-minute conversations interrupted by long sips of cold beer to numb the pangs of awkwardness.

Unexpected people remember your name and shake your hand. You tell them they look good (although you really mean they look the same). They reply that they've gained weight. You think they've always been chubby, but you were mainly complimenting them on their full head of hair.

They regale you with strange stories from high school that make you wonder aloud, "I said that?" Your old crush argues with you about whether certain New York neighborhoods are worth the noise and cost. Then she goes on about London, her adopted home, and her passionate tryst with a boy across the pond (you imagine Clive Owen). As she's talking, you're also looking longingly at the fresh pitcher of Stella Artois a few feet away and noticing the thinning crowd only listening to every other word coming from her mouth. You drink some more. You gossip loudly with friends you still keep close about who's had plastic surgery, who's high or drunk, and why certain people insist on showing off their chest hair or wearing gaudy cocktail dresses to a dump like this.

The next few days and nights might be spent dissecting the entire spectacle. And a small fraction of your heart might long for days past before you're jolted violently by the recollection of 18-year-old-you furiously wishing to leave those days in the dust. And soon you're back on a plane emerging from the haze, wondering if those five-minute conversations took place or if they were just figments of your increasingly lazy imagination.