A Trip Down Memory Lane: My Five-Year Reunion



A few weeks ago I made the journey back to my home town for the chance to catch up with old school friends. After 5 years, I had no idea what to expect, and I can say now that two things struck me: how pleasant it was, and how surreal it was. The initial hit of surrealism came from equal doses of changed appearances, and a complete lack of changed appearances. Some people looked like they’d just gotten out of cryogenic pods, and others I physically bumped into after not recognising them in the slightest. Meanwhile, some hadn't been entirely successful in adapting to the slowed metabolisms of living in your twenties...

The next wave of surrealism was more slow-burning, with the realisation that yes, everyone was now inexplicably extraordinarily nice. And not even just polite – they were genuinely proactively friendly. People I had literally never said a full sentence to in six years of high school would come up to me to hear how life was treating me, while I’d just been content to catch up with my small circle of good friends. Talk about humbling.

I have a theory about the pleasantness: for the first time, we were interacting with each other as adults. Five years had given everyone the necessary time to work out who they really were once all the teenage bullshit was stripped away. Like the frog in boiling water, we hadn't noticed the five-year transition as we lived it, but being confronted with versions of people that differed so drastically from our memories was an amazing eye-opener. That alone made the reunion worthwhile.

So my advice to anyone else with impending reunions: just do it. If one thing is guaranteed, it’s that it will be nothing like high school. Not even close. Even ignoring the nostalgic fun of catching up, experiencing the change in others makes you appreciate the change they must be experiencing in you.


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