reunion time

OK. So we make it to Lakeville and my mind kind of split in half. Driving through those gates was like revealing the portal to a dream land. It had been so long since i returned to Hotchkiss (let alone seen many of my classmates) that i honestly grew to believe that the school and all the classmates i didn't keep in touch with only existed in my imagination (or as a data entry on Facebook). And yet, here I was - a man with a family - sitting in the dining hall where hundreds of thousands of memories were made. The dining hall was fundamentally unchanged (unlike much of the school which had sprouted new wings and centers all over the place) which added to the mental dislocation. Sitting down at one of the familiar tables, ghosts of 1991 started flickering in the crowds and brushing past the table. Occasionally one of us would break the ice, embrace and review 20 years in as many minutes. The social hierarchy that dominated every high school is now flat. The insecurities of the teenage years are absent. The waistlines on the boys are larger, the hairlines higher. When people smile, the creases take longer to relax into their faces. Everyone was a little happier than expected. Everyone felt like family. Even people you may not have liked back in the day. We all lived as brothers and sisters. We ate all our meals together. We shared a home town at a crucial time in our lives. A day was enough time and it was nice to be anchored with some close friends there. I think may actually look forward to doing it again.