Reunion Therapy

Making up with the girl I dumped

“It looks like an AA meeting,” my husband John says from our hiding place behind a tree. 

“I can’t remember why I thought this was a good idea,” I reply, searching my mouth for the saliva.  I find it at the back of my throat, tinged with the remnants of the Racer 5 beer John and I shared in the car moments earlier. 

The venue for the reunion is the Garden House at Shoup Park. A glorified tree house encircled by large redwoods, the building’s windows provide a clear view of my ex-classmates. 

“We could skip it and go have dinner,” I say, casting an eye toward the bank of conifers separating the park from downtown Los Altos. 

Situated 30 miles south of San Francisco, the Los Altos of my youth was a low-key place; its main thoroughfare populated with unpretentious shops covered with shingled awnings and storefront windows full of middle-class bits and bobs. From the little I saw just now on our way here; the downtown is a corpulent visage of its former self; a rustic Old Town Canoe someone has turned into a gilded pleasure vessel. 

Glancing up at the Garden House where some 120 of my classmates are gathered, I wonder how many still live in the area, which has some of the highest housing prices anywhere in the world. 

“I guess I’m curious,” I say without certainty.

“You and everyone else,” says John, who attended his 40th reunion, without me, a few months prior.  “An inch deep and a mile wide,” is how he describes the conversations I am about to have. 

I paid $230 and driven two hours and nine minutes for this exercise in social anxiety, I remind myself, as I step out from underneath the tree. It would be fiscally irresponsible to turn around now. 

High school stands out as a huge failure in my life. I had clear braces, iffy hair, low self-esteem, poor grades, and even worse SAT scores. What I had going for me was a desire to write, a love of history and storytelling, and an affinity for languages. Short of editing my school paper as a sophomore and a few other sporadic extra-curricular activities, there wasn’t much I felt good about. Deep down inside I knew a better version of me existed, waiting to debut, which she did—in college, where I thrived. Until then, I was miserable. And disappointed—in myself. 

In my defense, I’d started high school on precarious footing. Young for my grade but too experienced for my own good, I entered 9^th grade hunched by the weight of my short-lived life. I’d lost a best friend a few years earlier in a plane crash; my parents’ marriage was a Stage IV cancer no one could cure or contain. In a moment of confusion, someone stole my virginity, leaving me to sort out its value—after the fact.  Three losses that combined cut my childhood off at its skinned knees, leaving me a hobbled teen. 

John, who I met at age 20, knows everything there is to know about me, which makes him an excellent, low-maintenance reunion date. It also means that when, at the entry to reunion, someone hands him a name badge with my senior picture slapped on the face, he knows better than to comment on how I look. I am fixating on my face, on John’s chest, wondering what the hell I’m doing here, when someone calls my name. I turn around in time to see my freshman prom date—grinning at me as he introduces himself to John. More classmates appear. I am blocked in on all sides. Someone must have got the memo that I may be “a runner.” Eventually, I am drawn into the main room where everyone is gathered. People are grouped together in tiny clusters. There’s at least one guy eating alone at a table. John hands me a glass of wine—my first and last of the evening. I’m too distracted by conversation to drink or eat. 

My former classmates turn out to be even nicer than I remember. Our conversations during the evening go much deeper than the inch John predicted, which may explain why I left the reunion having connected with only a fraction of the people I’d wanted to re-meet. My old friends were mostly unchanged which was cool to see. While not all my high school friend choices were good ones, many were as I was reminded at the reunion. The qualities I’d admired in my friends as a teenage girl had solidified over time. This made me both happy and a little sad; had I not been so intent on putting high school behind me, we might have grown into adulthood together. An exchange with a former friend who’d bad mouthed me during our senior year also proved worthwhile. She found me early in the evening. I’m not sure why but I’m glad she did. Because in the ten minutes we spoke about everything but that, I felt her long ago barb loosen from my heart, creating the space to remember a time when we’d been friends, exchanging books and travels stories. High School girls are great at weaponizing their insecurities against one another. It’s a shame because most of us are nicer and more vulnerable than we act. 

The real surprise of the night, that I wasn’t expecting, was reuniting with teenage Holly.  Face to face, with years in between us, she looked nothing like the unworthy girl I remembered, which was both a relief but also heartbreaking, too. I wish I’d cared for her better.   

High school is tough on teens. You juggle six or seven subjects which have as much in common as you and your parents; your body is changing and so are your friendships and often your family, and not for the better. Freedom, responsibility, loss, and risk show up at once ready to wreak havoc on innocent, adolescent order. Throw a smart phone into the mix and you’re screwed. 

I entered high school at 13 and graduated at 17, feeling like the oldest, most worn down human on earth. A few months later, I was in a new place, with new friends, making a fresh start. Holly 2.0. Life got better. I got better. And here I am, sharing thoughts I would never have dared back then. To my high school age friends and relatives, I beg you to hang in there. It’s four years, no less, no more. You got this. If you do nothing else show up—for class, your friends, and yourself most of all.  Don’t beat yourself up for being less at a time when it’s impossible to be much more than you are. That smartphone isn’t your friend. A bully maybe, a distraction for sure. Don’t be afraid to give it a break. 

Give yourself a break. I’m finally did—40 years late, but better late than never.

End Note—About that Sweater

I may have ditched High School Holly for a time but not this sweater. Rustic and wooly, it belonged to my mother who wore it in Germany when she and Dad lived there before I was born. I nabbed it from Mom’s closet when I was in high school. Hard to style but so comfy, it’s been with me ever since. Wearing the sweater for this photo made me feel like I was being buddy hugged by Mom and my teen self. #togetherinwool 

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