Yesterday was my high school reunion. I did not go.
Some things are worth the push. A challenging hike. Colonoscopies. But high school reunions, for me, not so much.
I could tell you that our two Senior Class advisors were Mr. F., a math teacher who was having sex with a handful of my classmates, and Ms. Z., an English teacher who got arrested a short time after we graduated for prostitution. It was like Moulin Rouge High, but that was not a factor in my decision to skip the reunion.
I could tell you it was the seventies, and our school offered an alternative to high school program called ILE, Independent Learning Experience, in which a handful of hippies including yours truly got to define and pursue our academic passions and take college classes. I didn’t attend conventional high school after 10th grade, so I never bonded with my classmates because they didn’t know I existed. But that’s not why I didn’t go, either.
I might have had a good time. I like people, generally. But I also know the prospect of going would have been a source of anxiety for weeks, and I would have fretted and lost sleep. I know for a fact I like sleep, but three hours at the local Knights of Columbus with a group of people I never knew or barely remember seemed like a long shot.
Is this personal growth? Maybe not. But I wake this morning refreshed, happy to have arrived at a time in my life where I am able to say, without rationalization, an unequivocal hell yes to the no.