High School Reunion

There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered.  ~Nelson Mandela

A couple of weeks ago was my high school reunion (ahhhh I'm getting old)! I couldn't make this event unfortunately, but I definitely discussed and joked about it with my best friends from high school - joked about how we would have our own "Romy and Michelle" moments, creatively thinking about the ways we could persuasively (or not so persuasively) enhance the perception of our lives - make it sound more romantic - to our old classmates (posts it anyone?). 


With the advent of Facebook, a high school reunion does not hold as much mystic and allure as it used to - you already have an idea of what most people are doing and more importantly what most people look like hehe.  But I must admit that there was a part of me that was a little disappointed I had to miss the affair.


My high school experience was truly positive, and I look back at that period of time in my life and the people that encompassed it with fond memories and warm sentiment.  It would have been nice to reunite with old peers and have a night of nostalgia to remenince about our teenage selves.  

But I think the one thing that this reunion made me realize was how quickly time goes by and how much a person can evolve, change, within such a period.  It made me think about the Nelson Mandela quote, "There is nothing like returning to a place that remains unchanged to find the ways in which you yourself have altered."  


Every time I go back home this quote pops into my head.  Coral Springs, Florida - my home town - looks exactly the same as when I left it as an 18 year old girl.  There is the same movie theater with its rambuncous young weekend crowd, the same 24 hour Deny's where we used to hang out to grab a midnight treat, and the same park where we used to escape and waste way a sunny Saturday.  My high school remains unchanged - veiled in the identical uniform of its self during my own tenure, perhaps a little more weathered with the passing of some time.  The school's hallways still have that same musty mildew smell (disgusting I know, but now oddly comforting), and the soccer field with its freshly cut grass still elicits the a tinge of excitement that always came with an impending game day.   And then I begin to think to myself how there are a new crop of students who line those hallways, play on that soccer field, go to that Deny's, hang out at that movie theater - and I wonder if their experiences parallel mine, wonder if their time there will shape them in the same way as it shaped me, wonder if it will all mean as much to them as it meant to me.


And as any reunion will do, it is a marker of time - and I think about how, while the place I call home and grew up has not really altered since I left, it asks as a time capsule reminding me how much I have changed and how far I have come, and perhaps how much further I have left to go.  The passing of time brings with it own experience and lessons, knowledge that carves out and polishes our very beings so that no matter how much we may want to look back and go back at times, we can't.  We are no longer the same person, can't be the same person - we are altered by time.  And I think about this with a smile on my face, thankful for my experiences that have transformed me into the person I am today, thankful that I can see and appreciate the journey, and excited for how much more there is to come.