Sentimentalism is for pussies, or why I won’t be attending my high school reunion

After a whirlwind weekend in Chicago (pun fully intended), I find myself back in my home state of Connecticut. Despite my bag’s desire to be fashionably late by two hours in Hartford (Southwest has received a scathing e-mail), I am ecstatic to be back. Promises of road races, drinks, turkey, and foliage await me. Yet, there is one thing that I am not looking forward to: my 5 year high school reunion.

my high school graduation--they shouldn't let people who raise the roof with diplomas into college. 

Let’s look at this for a second. First of all, it’s only five years. Many people I’ve spoken to have said that this miniscule amount of time is not worthy of a reunion. Surely a ten year is more appropriate (yes it is, and don’t call me Shirley). The most any of us have done in five years is possess an undergraduate degree and have a job in a field that isn’t necessarily what we set out to do in the first place. If we’re lucky. Best case scenario, the reunion will be full of people bemoaning debt for their expensive, worthless degrees that their minimum wage job won’t pay off until 500 years from now. I’m smug though, because this isn’t me. Therefore, why do I need to pay entry to a restaurant to hear people that once proclaimed Harvard Law on their horizon, now complain that their job isn’t using their degree in polisci. It’s depressing.

I know what you’re thinking. I’m a horrible person who somehow got lucky and found a job she liked, so she’s thinking she’ll be ‘nice’ and spare everyone the anxiety of seeing how rich and fabulous she is. What a bitch. While all of this is true, I’m not going for those reasons. I’m not attending my 5 year high school reunion because I hate the past.

George Santayana famously wrote, “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it”. Considering I already have my high school diploma, I highly doubt that not remembering it will rescind that honor. That’s not what I’m getting at. I don’t see the point in reminiscing in this small chapter of my life. Sure, I had a blast in high school. I was painfully average back then. I had great friends, decent grades, a date for prom, and a smattering of extra curriculars that somehow got me into a pretty good school.  I was lucky—I wasn’t bullied, hated, or had anything really monumental happen to me. My point is, what do I really have to remember that I already don't?

Thanks to Facebook and phones (with Facebook), I keep in touch with my friends from high school. The best part is, I don’t have to keep in touch with those I don’t want to. I can hide people from my Newsfeed or just unfriend them entirely. I sound like a bitch again, but just think about it—how often are we forced to reminisce about things we don’t want to, or worse, just don’t need to?

Life is short. I’d rather foster great relationships and build new memories than remember mundane things I can’t change. Painful memories suck, but innocuous ones are wastes of space and time. I guess I don’t see the point in dredging up how many times I struck out in JV softball or how I was the second dumbest person in National Honor Society. It wasn’t all bad, but isn’t it so much better now? With all due respect to Bruce Sprignsteen, if your glory days are behind you, you’re not living right.

I am planning to see my best friends from high school this Thanksgiving week. I will not be paying a cover at a mediocre Mexican restaurant that I never loved in the first place, to see people that represent something I can’t change. The truth is, I do value important parts of the past and have a memory that unfortunately never lets me forget anything (movie/TV quotes and dating histories especially).

All I’m saying, is if we did friendships right, we don’t need a reunion. High school is over, and if the point is to see what everyone is up to—call those people if you really care that much. I’ve done all of this, and as a result, I’m going to spend Friday night in with my family, playing Trivial Pursuit and Scrabble. Seeing this past sentence, perhaps I wasn’t as popular in high school, if I think this is a valid Friday night.