So just this past week I got a slew of emails piling up in my inbox alluding to the collusion of some of my former high school classmates and their persistence in pursuing a some-year reunion. Somebody already dropped the ball and what would have been our ten-year reunion came and went in 2004. So now here we are and people are talking about it.
I'm truly torn on the whole reunion concept and I'll share two reasons why. The first is quite honest but some might argue, superficial. The simple fact that I share with many people is this: If I was truly friends with those people I went to high school with, then I would have kept in touch with them! As it stands, I do have a few friends from those day of yore that I do keep in touch with. Two of them I'm bound to legally through marriage and a few others I've managed to keep tabs on through the wonder of the Internet. Anyone else, well, I'm just really, and I know this sounds pretty damn arrogant, not worried about. It's not that I think they're bad people. It's that I realize and have come to grips that life does go on and that our lives are sometimes intertwined for a season and then moved along by the hand of God. We're thankful, so thankful, for those seasons but in many cases really don't want or need to revisit them either.
My second reason, and this is a rather honest and painful one, is that I'm not sure I wish to go because of prideful reasons. I've crammed four simple years of college into twelve. I've done all sorts of stuff but, at least in some ways, nothing with much lasting effect. I have no six figure income, luxurious home, or even some fancy pants new car, although my new car is pretty sweet to me! I guess that part of me really doesn't want to see all of these people I grew up with, all of us in our formative states, cliques and all, all of us dreamers, and come with no dream fulfilled. It's not that I've not done anything. I have served as a youth pastor for a time. I have, albeit later and longer than most, finished college (I'm assuming that I am going to pass my final two courses!). I have married a lovely young woman and had the privelege of being a father to a great son and am awaiting the same opportunity with our baby girl. I guess it really is a pride issue. I just want to enter into the area with the air of having accomplished something, of having done something with my life. Some days I just wonder what that is.
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I guess that's all we're left to do, when it's all said and done, right? We're left to wonder. We're left to wonder that what ifs and so ons. After all, we can't go back in time and change things. Unless, of course, we own a Delorian that's fixed with the Flux Capacitor.
I think, many times, we're too caught up in the past. We wish we did things differently. We wonder how things would have been had we chose the can of Pepsi versus the bottle of Coke.
Yet, we forget about the now. We forget that God looks forward to seeing us moving in action in the now. We look at our past so long, sometimes, we pass up opportunities to advance God's kindom today.
Great discussion starter my friend and congrats on your new life.
Take care my friend.
You may just go to that reunion and find out that many, many people are in the same boat you are. It doesn't matter that everyone hasn't kept in touch. You could rekindle old friendships or find new ones. I myself have changed immensely since back then and I now see different things in some of our fellow classmates. As we age, all those "cliques" of the past are no longer important. We are not the popular ones, the athletes, the band geeks, etc. We are all adults turning 30 trying to make it in the world. Yes I have a fancy college degree but I also live in a mobile home and drive a 12-year-old vehicle. Do I care? No ... because those superficial things don't matter. And i've been involved in the email conversations and i've learned that many people are still trying to figure life out. Life has taken many of us on different paths than we had planned for ourselves. I've found that I have more in common with old classmates now than I did back then. So I, for one, am looking forward to our 13 year reunion. I don't see it as dwelling on the past.
Celena, I realize that but it still is a difficult thought. You're right that many of us, actually I'm sure, most of us have changed, matured, and become greatly different people from who we were twelve years ago. That is a great and beautiful thing. However, I don't know. It's just something I'm struggling with a bit. I'm just using this space to be honest.
Your site is on top of my favourites - Great work I like it.
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