What if we had met among a hundred or so of our classmates at a banquet or lecture back on campus? Apart from our personal discomfort with each other, we would have been subjected to the searching gazes of anyone who knew us back then filled with speculation that couldn't have been fair or complimentary for either of us. One-on-one, or its nearest equivalent, was a true blessing in that situation particularly.
A reunion demands an attitude from attendees that can range from panic to devil-may-care. Perhaps the group to which we belonged will force us to reveal to ourselves as well as to the world the worst of our vanity and lack of self-confidence, make our immature opinions shove to the fore again, our long-gone anxieties may revive in the face of the people who gave them rise in the first place. Or worse, no one will even remember us.
Or we may be sufficiently demoralized (if a spouse or insistent friend has forced us to go) to decide not even to dress up. We may decide to adopt an attitude of hauteur or hostility or just complete detachment. Besides, there's the uncomfortable chance than maybe no one will remember us.
There are other sorts of reunions. Family reunions as such are outside my area of knowledge. Neither my husband nor I came from large families, and now my children and I are all the close family available. For instance, there are those occasioned by rites of passage like weddings, anniversaries, retirements, and, of course, funerals. The discomforts of those are perhaps less universal in kind, but no less dangerous in their own way as class reunions. The advantage of those meetings, however, is that the coming together of people who are not usually in each other's company is occasioned by something other than the reunion itself. We aren't forced to focus on ourselves, but must instead concentrate on the occasion for which we are coming together. A wedding is apt to be enjoyable. However, we must be alert to almost as many threats to our emotional equilibrium as those dreaded (by me) class gatherings. On the other hand, maybe no one will remember us.
©2010 Joan L. Cannon for SeniorWomen.com
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