Memory Lane...

I was getting ready to come into town this morning when I noticed my sister had a pile of her friends' senior pictures on the bathroom vanity. I started looking at them because I was curious to put a face with all of the names she talks about. It made me smile nostalgically when I read what they had written on the backs of their pictures. I remember doing the same thing with my senior pictures 11 years ago. As a senior in high school, you think you've done a lot of things and know a lot about life, but that all changes in college, and then even more after college. I remember so many of my classmates who said "never change" and yet I did change quite a bit. I also remember several who said we'd be "friends forever", that we wouldn't forget each other and would find time to get together after graduation. I can count on one hand the number of my classmates with whom I'm still in contact. For the first five years after high school, keeping in touch always seemed so important, as if you didn't have an identity separate from the group. For so many years we were "the class of '93", and while that is part of history, that identity ended with graduation. After graduation we became "Sonya who went to the University of Iowa" or "Jay who went to Iowa State University", or even "Trudy who moved to California".

It just made me smile because I know what she'll go through in the upcoming years, and I know how eventually, no matter your intentions, there will be those classmates that you never see again and only talk about when you wonder "what happened to so-and-so? I heard that..." Running into your classmates' parents is a prime opportunity to catch up on what's been going on and then you become shocked because you discover that the wild child you knew has become a settled, married woman with four children. She's part of the PTA and has a career as a nurse, which makes your jaw drop. You never imagined that kind of outcome for her. Yet you are happy for her.

It's strange. I never went to my 10-year reunion. It no longer seemed important and my alumni high school holds few cherished memories for me. Maybe that's part of growing up in a rural area and only having 17 kids in my class. Ironically enough, we were the biggest class in the school. The class that graduated ahead of me only had 9 kids (Ed Abbeys' class). At times I look back and I know we were more of a family than a "class". But then, there are very few I've seen since graduation and to be honest, there are a few that I don't care to ever see again. I see the few whom make the same effort that I do to stay in touch. The others have disappeared into the haziness of memory from which I struggle at time to recall what they looked like.

Good luck Class of 2005. May you be able to hold to your intentions and if you are not able to do so, just be happy in what you choose in life and cherish your memories of your former "family".