TLJ Nicholas Photography With A Personal View: 35th High School Reunion

One week prior to our 35th high school reunion we decided to go… ok I was the one who decided for us. We were so, up in the air, about whether or not we should attend this reunion. There was my health to consider which lately has been more bad days then good days, the emptiness of the loss of two dear family members and the coming Thanksgiving holiday dinner.

My mind was on having a joint family Thanksgiving dinner with my sister-in-law and her children and grandchildren. You see she had suddenly lost her husband in June and then her son in October. I knew that this holiday would be quite difficult for her and our nieces and nephew. I thought that a joint family dinner would be a good thing for all of us this year. I could only seem to focus on them, not our 35th reunion which was scheduled for the day after Thanksgiving.

I called my girlfriend who has always been more like my other sister to let her know that we would not be going to this reunion. She said that she could understand especially with everything that has taken place over the past five months. After I hung up from talking with her I said to LJN well it’s done… we are not going.

On Monday I began receiving email after email from some of my classmates, “We hope you can make it,” “See you on Nov 28th” and “Go to the website and register.” I started thinking about our decision and I asked myself, why did we decide not to go to the reunion? Was it totally because of my unpredictable health? I heard myself answering with, no not really. As I continued to probe my mind I realized that the ‘no’ decision was coming from a feeling of loss, and I thought that I would be disrespecting that loss by going and having some fun at the reunion.

I called LJN and told him I was thinking about going to the reunion. I remember him saying to me do you think you will be up to it? I said, I can only hope and pray that I will be having one of my good days. Later that afternoon I went to our high school reunion website and sent in our registration. Then I sent an email to my girlfriend telling her that we would be going… Yes we will be attending!

I am glad that I took the time to really inspect my decision to go. We both had a good time seeing our fellow classmates and socializing with them. Once again we reconnected with a past stage of our lives as adults with more life stories to share with one another.

If you have never attended your high school reunion I strongly recommend that you do! You may not think so but you will have a lot of fun. And in order to really enjoy yourself remember that you are not stuck in the year that you graduated but you are now an adult reuniting with other adults who all have different life stories… so yes, get dressed up, look your best, be yourself and have fun seeing the hottest cheerleader, the handsome quarterback, the class president and the class clown… we are all grown up now, but still very, very young at heart!