The Right Fit
When I first saw the message, I felt a rush of excitement. A college friend contacted a few of us to make sure we would help with our reunion next year since she had been named as co-chair of the event.
I don’t get to see my college friends much at all even though I keep in touch with many online. We have all spread out and just don’t have many chances to get together with work and family. So an impending reunion made me happy.
Then I did the math. This isn’t just any reunion. This is our 25th reunion.
How could I get excited about planning the event when I had to deal with a reality that I try to ignore as much as I can? I’m old.
A 25th reunion means my post-college experience is older than I was when I graduated. I have managed to deny this fact even though I know some classmates have kids in college and the movies and music we loved back in the day have celebrated all kinds of anniversaries that remind me that the late 1980s were a long time ago.
So if we get together, the images I have in my head of all of us in our 20s may have to fade into the background. It’s bad enough that I think many classmates look like the past 25 years treated them better time treated me. Now I have to see it in person.
I didn’t intend of making those memories at Allegheny College. I had another school in mind as my top choice. Allegheny sat on my list with a couple of other schools under the heading, “OK, I Have to Pick One of These if Plan A Doesn’t Happen.”
The news that my top choice put me on their waiting list hurt until the next day when I went to work and got an amazing pick-me-up lecture from a friend.
“You will do better at Allegheny,” she told me. “It’s a smaller school so you will be able to get more involved, and you will love it.”
She and I have lost touch so I don’t know if I ever got the chance to properly thank her for the best advice I ever received.
College played an important role in my life. I didn’t have the most vibrant social life in high school and used the next four years to take advantages of all the opportunities I had previously let slide by.
That’s why the rush of getting a chance to play a role in an event which will help re-kindle those memories outweighs anything that reminds me I can’t run around with my shirt off like I used to or that I may need to take a pill to make sure I don’t get heartburn from a night of reckless eating and drinking.
The passage of time does have some benefits. If I manage to exaggerate some of my exploits during reunion weekend, I can simply accuse anyone who tries to correct me of having a bad memory because we’re getting older.
