It’s been said that you can’t go
home again- that attempts to relive youthful memories always fail because time
changes everything. I used to think that
too, but I was wrong. Last weekend I
returned home for my high school reunion, having missed every single one since
graduation. It was never intentional –
life just got in the way. A lot of years
have slipped by and time has eroded memories, and I’m guilty of letting too
many miles pass between hello’s, phone calls, texts, and emails, especially to many
people who mattered 30+ years ago.
In an instant
the years fell away.
For two days it
was all about seeing old friends and missing those who couldn’t be there, catching
up on the paths each of us had taken, sharing memories, and laughing about stories
I’d forgotten (especially the ones that were horribly embarrassing). As my friend Butch put it, we stopped being
jocks, nerds, rah-rahs, and beauty queens and kings – instead we were just a group
of old friends getting together again after too much time apart. People say that you shouldn’t live your life
looking in the rear view mirror and I’ve always believed that all that matters
in life is what’s ahead. But something
has always pulled me back to high school, the friendships that were made there
a long time ago, and the memories that still endure years later.
I believe the
friendships you make early in life are the ones you hold close – the same ones
that can bring you home again.
Those
four years were a bittersweet period that few of us truly appreciated back then
– a time of transition and change you could never wrap your hands around. There were tears, fears, laughter, worries, heartache,
and heartbreak twisted around classes, homework, and tests about subjects most
of us had already forgotten by graduation.
Crushes, phone calls, and late night conversations with girls who saw
you as a “friend” when you wanted desperately to be something more than that. Football keg parties on Saturday nights, long
classes spent watching the minutes fall slowly off the clock, and too many
stupid, immature things that were said and done – the kind of things that still
make you cringe years later (while hoping that God has a sense of humor about
stuff like that). Some of us even grew
up a little. Or grew up a lot. You learned to love and you learned about
hurt, and many of us forged relationships that remain strong years later.
Over
the past few months as the reunion took shape and many of us reconnected again,
I loved how easily we all slipped back into comfortable grooves. You spend so much time trying to get out of
high school that you miss what you have beyond the classrooms and how special each
friendship can be. When we graduated we
talked about the future as well as where we were going and how we would change
the world, but last weekend it was nice to be reminded of where we started. Age, or maybe maturity, has a way of making
things clearer – at least the things that are still meaningful.
When
I drove home, I felt a familiar hurt – I wasn’t sure if it was nostalgia
kicking my ass or the kind of sadness that comes from genuine, heartfelt good
byes.
Or maybe it was
the realization that no matter how far you go or what you try to do, you can’t
do any of it if you don’t remember where you came from. And that no matter where you’re going, it’s
the friends you have who make it all worthwhile.