Reunion.

One of the comments on the preceding post set me to thinking:

I have a reunion coming up - not this year, but next year. A few weeks back, I was contacted by one of the people organizing it. On the rare occassion that I've actually thought about my high school reunion, my thought has been that I won't go. Candidly, I haven't really stayed in touch with many people from high school; not because I didn't like them, because I did - I just didn't stay in touch. And it isn't that I have no desire to stay in touch with old friends, as this whole Tres Hombres deal exists because three old friends from college still check in on each other. So why don't I want to go?

There is probably some deep truth I'm not wanting to confront about the fact that I'm not successful in the way I had hoped and planned when I was in high school. Even if that is a thought that demonstrates fairly stunted emotional growth, it's probably true. I'm just not where I thought I would be. And strangely, I have a great deal of joy in my life and actually am remarkably grateful for the way my life has turned out. Those probably sound like contradictory statements (and they probably are on some level), but both are true: I'm not where I thought I'd be and that feels like failure and I am profoundly grateful for the life I have and experience a greater level of joy and contentment in my life now than I have at any point in the past. That's a strange juxtaposition of feelings I need to sort through, I think.

So, will I go? I don't know. Luckily, I have a year to think about it.