Summertime Class Reunions

A red, white, and blue “Welcome Back Class of ‘76!” banner hung over the double doors of a large banquet room. Photo name tags were on the table just before the entry way. I quickly found my high school face among the others yet to arrive.  

My stomach knotted up as I looked around for friendly faces. It had been ten years since I’d seen most of my classmates. Suddenly I was once again the shy kid in elementary school, reluctant to say or do anything. I held my husband Tom’s hand.

 

This was supposed to be the beginning of our career phase of life, but I didn’t have a whole lot to show for it. Some of us had married, others not yet. I could see friends sharing pictures of little kids. I didn’t make my way around the room to visit; I remained frozen at a table. I remembered who I’d been in high school and felt awkward even ten years later. Tom urged me to mingle while he snapped photos of people he’d just met.

 

When Tom and I went to his twenty-year high school reunion a decade later, it was far different. Everyone casually moved around enjoying quiet conversations. My husband hadn’t seen many of his friends in years, but these nearly forty-year-olds were once little kids growing up together. They reflected on their past while catching up on where they’d been. After two decades it didn’t seem to matter who had been popular—an equality had set in.

 

Our classmates were once part of the fabric of our lives—they were with us in our beginnings—when those fabric threads were just starting to create a unique design in our lives.

 

Whether it’s a class reunion, or a smaller gathering of friends, it’s a special chance to grab those fabric threads and continue weaving them together. It becomes our own personal tapestry. Eventually, that tapestry covers us with some awesome lifelong friendships. 


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