Glory Days
Reunions are a funny thing. Getting ready for mine at Catawba College this past weekend felt a lot like getting ready for a first date, but worse. I wanted to make a good impression, but these were people who I had seen practically on a daily basis for 4 years. So in short, it was like getting a second chance to make a first impression, but without that convenient blank slate.
I found myself second guessing everything and looking at my life with very judgmental eyes. What had I done with my life over the last 10 years? It couldn't be that special. I mean I was there for it all and it doesn't impress me. I was convinced that everyone else was curing cancer or inventing a better mouse trap. Why I thought a bunch of theatre majors were curing cancer or making mouse traps is just an example of how crazy I was driving myself.
Listening to 6 straight hours of This American Life helped put me at ease. There is just something about Ira Glass' voice that makes it seem like everything is going to work out alright. The downside of that much American Life is that you start to hear Ira Glass' voice narrating your life like a scene out of Stranger Than Fiction.
Stepping in to that world full of people from the past was like stepping through a time warp. The faces were familiar, but the lives were different. Very few of us had stuck to our big post graduation plans, but everyone seemed happy. Of course, I guess that if you are unhappy with how you life is going, you generally don't come to reunions to brag about it. "Hey guys. My life sucks, so what have you been up since graduation?"
The energy of the group was more low key. It's like we had all figured out what was important in life and had shed the keyed up energy that comes from trying to grab a hold of all the brass rings because we knew that we had the gold ring tight within our grasp. There was not competition. Our lives were our lives, other had their lives, there didn't seem to be any one upsmanship. Rather it was time spent catching up, exchanging stories and laughing over memories of our youth.
Despite how nervous I was going in and how I flipped flopped about whether I was even going to go or not, I can not say how glad I am that I went. The biggest thing I got out of the whole experience was to actually see how far I have come in ten years. Every time I thought about this reunion I would become overwhelmed with the feelings of inadequacy that haunted my college years. I felt lost, insecure and small. I was sure that when I went back to the campus I would still be the person I was when I went there, but I am not. I am happy in my life and confident in myself. I am sure of my life choices and no longer feel that I need to justify them to the world at large. Where did that come from? What happened to those doubts, fears and loneliness of college? Oh they are still there, but I have a little more life experience now and I know how much credence to give those voices in my head telling me to hide under the covers and just disappear from life.
Saturday morning I walked around campus with Teddy and watched the bleary eyed students walking to the cafeteria for breakfast. I read the signs for activities and groups. I even saw a young man talking on his phone in his boxer shorts and had to fight the urge tell him to go back inside his dorm. I thought back to myself at that age. I, like them, thought I had it all figured out and I knew how the world worked. I was an adult. I, like them, was making my mark on the world. Now I was just wondering who said it was OK for all of these babies to live on their own.
