20th High School Reunion

My 20th high school reunions is next week. They thought it would be a good idea to have it the day after Thanksgiving.  I guess they assumed that everyone would be in town visiting family anyway.  The stupid thing is that I only found the announcement by chance.  They posted it on Facebook, which I’m never on.  If I hadn’t happened to log on for the first time all year, I would have missed it.

As I went to the website to purchase tickets, I noticed a list of people that had already signed up.  As I scrolled through the list of a little over 100 people, I realized that while I recognized some of the names, none of them were people that I had ever actually talked to in high school.  They were the outgoing people, the cool people, the popular people.  They were people that had actually been active in high school.  I was not one of those people.  

I was the guy that hung out on the back fields to eat lunch.  I was the guy that was introverted and kept a low profile.  With sadness, I realized that none of them would even recognize my name.  Nobody would care if I went or not.  I slowly closed the webpage without buying a ticket.  I had been waiting 20 years for this moment, and now that it had arrived, I couldn’t figure out what I had been waiting for.  I regret not being more involved.  I can think of so many ways I could have inserted myself in the happenings of the school, but I didn’t.  I just tried to get through it and move on.  I don’t have a lot of fond memories of high school, but I feel that is largely my own fault.  I had the chance and didn’t take it. Now there doesn’t seem like much point in going back.  I kept in touch with the people I cared about back then, so I guess that’ll have to suffice.

To those who do go, happy 20th anniversary, Bellaire HS Class of ‘97, from the anonymous introvert on the football fields.