20th Reunion

It's been 20 years (well, a little bit more than 20 years since I graduated early...) since I left high school, and who'd a thunk?
It went by quickly, and mercifully so, as it was far from the highlight of my younger years.
And I barely have an inkling to go to the reunion, since I recognize almost none of the names; and those I *do* recognize I can't remember exactly why... so going and standing in a room of strangers would be the equivalent of spending $$ and time to have a random night out, only with greater expectations that I'd see someone vaguely familiar yet still wouldn't have much to say to them (...and I've had enough of those experiences to know that they aren't terribly satisfactory; tous les dimanches, peut-être?)

The people I *really* want to connect with from school days gone by wouldn't be there-- they'd be the kids who dragged my butt all over Chicago, and the one kid I spent most of my time with-- and where the heck are THEY? No clue.


I get the impression after talking with a long lost relative that this is a time when we begin to take an accounting for our lives, probably the first in a long line of many that are to come as we get older. It's as if the milestone not only bears enough significance in our own minds to warrant an inventory, but is spectacle enough such that we feel the pressure to present what we've created for ourselves in these 20 years to the world for review.

We're 38 now: have we gotten married? Divorced? Remarried? Are our children the same age we were when the stories of our high school lives were written-- or are we struggling our way thru the toddler years, or with the notion that it's almost too late to have children at all anymore?
Did we go to college, take up employment in our field of study, or are we changing careers (this seems common for many)? Does it matter if we stayed at home when our kids were born or if we blazed on thru to continue building our careers as we were encouraged to do as part of our generation?
And what defines us as people: what we studied, where we work, our income? Is who we are made more important by who we married, our children, or where we live?
I dunno.
Is my life more or less important because I decided to skip med school and travel in favor of a family and a life with too many hobbies?
I guess this is my own life's question, and what I have to present to the world: