I don’t know if all of you realize how old I am, given my obvious childlike wonder with the world, but this summer would be my 20th reunion. Yes, it’s true. I am that old.
I did not keep in touch with my high school friends, except for one… Julie. I left Tulsa a month after graduation. I came back six months later, for a wedding, when I was 19. But that’s it. Like most things in my mind, I’ve taken the memories of high school, for the most part, and backed them up to to DAT tape, and they now sit gathering dust on a shelf. I don’t even have a DAT tape drive anymore. When Julie and I do talk, she’s always reminding me of stuff I did, or said, or things that happened, things that are fuzzy and vaguely familiar. Almost as if I knew someone who had those experiences, I’ve heard their stories, but they didn’t happen to me. And yet I can remember Julie as clear as day.
Even when I was in high school, I wasn’t all that. I wasn’t popular. Or particularly unpopular. I wasn’t completely inactive in school activities, but the ones I did participate in tended to be smaller, less prestigious ones. Red Cross, Key Club, French Club, National Honors Society. I had friends on various social levels, although few on the upper echelons. No cheerleader friends. I was in honors and AP classes, but by no means a star in any of those classes. Except maybe a couple of quarters of Physiology, when I would compete with my friend Michelle for highest grade. Mostly, I was in the middle of the smart kids. I was middle ground all around. My high school experience peaked in my junior year, if you can consider that a peak in life. I didn’t go to prom. Maybe I knew, even back then, that this was just not the high point in my life. I feel sorry for those for which it was. I didn’t go to my 10 year reunion, and couldn’t think of a reason why I would. Julie was living in Bolivia at the time, and if she wasn’t there, there was no reason.
Until last night, I was officially on the Missing List. I liked being on the Missing List, it was mysterious. I could be anything, while I was on the Missing List. I fancied myself an international spy. Fluent in Russian, unfortunately. No one needs spies who speak Russian anymore. Maybe I am currently stationed in the Middle East, learning to speak scary new languages, since that’s where the government says the terrorists are. [Hence the belly dance classes!] Or maybe I am in Africa, working with other doctors on the frightening AIDS epidemic. Or maybe I am living in an ashram, and I’ve shaved my head and now everyone must call me Sunbeam. Who knows? I was on the freakin’ Missing List. I could be anything I wanted.
But, like any good spy, fluent in Russian, my curiosity got the best of me last night. And I found the website for the Class of 86 reunion. And, in order to see the details… I had to register. I caved. My spy instincts got the best of me. But not enough to fake my name. I am now no longer Missing. I’m bummed. But, it’s not like anyone was looking for me anyway, there is a message board with a thread of “Looking for….” and no one was looking for me. I looked over the names of the classmates who have registered. Some of the names sounded so familiar, but again, like names I’ve heard in books maybe. I couldn’t attach faces to most of them, let alone memories.
Am I going, you ask? Well, I gave it a great deal of thought. I wondered if I would be depriving myself of recapturing some truly precious memories. If this, like the prom, was one of those Life Experiences everyone should have. I thought about it for about two minutes. And then I realized it conflicted with the Eels show at the showbox. No way am I missing the Eels. I mean, come on… it was only high school!
