LIFE, AT LEAST in the keeping-score department, has always had its ups and downs for me. In junior high I was such a great student and freakishly strong wrestler that my parents thought I wasn't being challenged enough. So off I went to a leading western boarding school which so profoundly depressed me that I gave up sports and reading altogether. The only guys that were below me in class ranking didn't even graduate. No big deal.
Things later took a turn for the better, so much so that when I attended my 15th high school reunion, I won a Flying Wing award for the person whom least was expected of and who did the best. Perhaps it all went to my head since five years later, having been the first millionaire, I was also the first person to go bankrupt.
The interesting thing is that my experience at both reunions was pretty much the same. Which is to say both extremes were equally isolating. With my screaming success, friends kept at a distance, wondering how that guy they knew had made it into the Times and was so obviously on top of the world. Nobody seemed at all pleased, and I was told later that it made their lives seem plodding by contrast.
When I showed up broke five years later, I think everybody thought they would catch what I'd caught--failure as a highly communicable disease. Go figure it.
--Real estate developer, age 38
#3
WHAT SURPRISED ME about my reunion were the physical changes that had occurred in most of us: In 42 years you know there are going to be changes; it's just that it seemed like yesterday that I'd left.
When I walked in to register my roommate was signing in at the desk. I'd lived with him for 2 1/2 years and I didn't even recognize him. But when he called me by my nickname I immediately knew the voice and knew who he was. Sure, there were all those similarities. But what I remembered was my last picture of him. So I looked at him and said, My goodness, I know this man. That's my old roommate. And I thought, Wow, this isn't what I thought it would be. I thought I would immediately recognize everybody. It was only his voice, his inflections, the way he used his hands-if he had a paper bag over his head, I would have known who he he was.
And then I wondered how I looked to the others. I mean, if this was my reaction to them, what were they thinking when they looked at me? I didn't think I'd aged that much. I looked in the mirror every morning and I didn't see all these changes. A few wrinkles here and there and yes the hair's all gray, but did I really change as much as they had?
This happened over and over again. I'd walk up to somebody, look at the name tag, realize who they were, notice they'd put on 100 pounds or something-but always the voice would tip me off. The initial change from that boyish young man I had in my mind to a person who was now much older was just hard for me to get used to. Those 42 years had gone by with a blink of an eye.
Then, throughout the course of the weekend, I think I blended what they used to looked like into what they looked like today. The faces became much more familiar. Perhaps I was seeing them through a filter. As I got to be with them, they all began to look and act like they did when we were together.
--Aeronautical engineer, age 65
#4
WHILE I DIDN'T want to be the one to point it out, not one of our friends really seemed to like each other anymore. In the half-decade since our departure, no cards had been exchanged no phone calls made, no hell-raising college visits had. People whose lives we once didn't miss a day of had all but from our personal geography.
There were about 50 people milling around the bar and I did a double-take at the array of alcohol, forgetting momentarily that we were all old enough to drink now. As our group slowly reunited, I was surprised by how it differed from the last time we were together. Instead of everybody doing the "my-life-can-top-your-life" business, no one really felt the urge to keep score. The ice was mostly broken by talking about old times.
And even this took on a new spin. "Old times" for this crew used to mean "I know you slept with my boyfriend so why don't you just admit it"; but now it switched to happy, feel-good kind of memories. Not exactly tears and hugs but no vicious barbs and subtle digs, either. Just talking about the parties we had, the fun summers, the times we stuck our necks out for each other and weren't sorry we did.
Looking back, no one is really sure when we all melded together again. Maybe the spirit of "us" and "everyone else" returned that Saturday night. Maybe we weren't as far apart as we thought.
-Law student, age 23
#5
THE CLOTHES I wore to my reunion were not the ones I had taken months to choose. Instead, they were more familiar garments that I had thrown on at the last minute, in tears. A half-hour before leaving, I had had a final crisis of confidence. The only single non-mother in my class, I was not leading the impressive life I had planned on back in 1971. And I wasn't up to repeated interrogation about it.
A reunion is a kind of time warp. For 20 years we had all been struggling with our various lives while, in our memories, our classmates remained the same. Why couldn't I approach my reunion as a chance to see old friends and spend an evening out? Why did the prospect of going fill me with a mixture of curiosity and dread that rivaled even that of a blind date?
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