(12th of a series – conclusion of 2 parts)
”…Someone said that reunions are like masquerade balls. No one comes as his genuine self. Many try to hide the scars behind a mask…”
WHETHER we like it or not, the past is a big part of who we have become. At some point, it may be worth our while to back track and come full circle just before the end game is in sight.
So the next time you get an invitation to a reunion, don’t hesitate, JUST GO. High school and college reunions are compelling reasons to go back and ride that blast from the past. Take the ride because it may never come again. Life is not only short. It is unpredictable as well.
Say NO to hubris.
You may have been too busy building a career, raising a family and have become so engaged with the nitty gritty to bother about such things as reunions. No you’re not indifferent nor have you become too big for your britches that you can’t be bothered. At any rate, there is nothing in this world to make anyone feel like a puffed up toad and think he or she is better than anyone else. Life has a way of cutting back to size any show of hubris and arrogance.
So what is your excuse for ducking reunions? In truth, you may just have too much on your plate for far too long. But this time around, you have to make time because there might never be a next time. And you may just miss out on one of the grandest rides of your lifetime.
Why GO?
There’s an upside to finally letting the past catch up with us. We get perspective. We hear life stories. Some are compelling while others are cautionary, sad tales. We begin to understand. And if reunions really serve their purpose, we come out of the experience happy. We have checked off one item from our bucket list.
We may come out humbled by the experience of living this long and having walked this journey with classmates who, in all likelihood, come from a similar background and are cut from the same cloth. You feel you have been blessed abundantly along with your contemporaries having made it this far.
Like a Masquerade Ball
Someone said that reunions are like masquerade balls. No one comes as his genuine self. Many try to hide the scars behind a mask. Like postings on social media, we all try to present to the world the best versions of our photoshopped images, kind of wearing a Sunday dress. If that is the case, so be it.
There is great fun and sidesplitting humor at reunions and celebrations of this sort. We see the same people and notice that they have changed very little from what you perceived them to be so many years ago. Then there are the few swan like characters that truly evolved from the gawky, awkward phases of youth — truly beautiful and oozing with class inside and out, confident without being cocky.
Then, there are the class clowns— the life of the party. They are still funny, still the center of attention with the same mannerisms and facial expressions as we reminisce with great fondness and hilarity the antics and practical jokes they pulled on their classmates. And then, there are the quiet, deep ones, still staying in the background and taking it all in. It’s a menagerie of characters, a few of whom, you may want to be friends with despite time and distance.
Whatever Happened?
The memories come gushing forth with shocking clarity as we dust off the cobwebs from our memory banks and dig up photos and put them on social media —a before and after, side to side comparison in reverse, from the once cute young thing BEFORE to the “Whatever happened???” AFTER. Hmmm, I am not sure the results would please many, including me. Sigh……
Oh, if we can only read the thought bubbles that float around during reunions! If you were psychic or a passably good mind reader, you can read what they really mean when they effusively say, largely out of well-meaning kindness, of how great you look. Okay just for the night we will be suckers for compliments, we will take them even if these are polite white lies.
Or these compliments can be true statements. If you have dieted, exercised and managed to lose a few pounds to fit into a gorgeous dress and look shapely with or without spanx, you can flash a killer smile and take a bow.
We look at the adolescent crushes we had many moons ago and for which we kept quiet at the time for fear of ridicule and embarrassment and we see them now with fresh eyes, a far cry from our teenage ideas of “cute” and say to yourself, “Girl, what were you thinking?”
Well, turnabout is fair play. The guys are probably thinking the same thing about you. For as nature would have it, the lean and scrawny spring chickens of the past have grown to mature Rhode Island Reds, meatier, heavier and may even waddle around like ducks. LOL!!!
Laugh it OFF.
This is where the laugh sound track comes in. If we have become truly wise over the years, many of us know without a doubt that a great sense of humor and more importantly, our unflinching faith in the goodness of God and the people who love us, sustained us and got us this far. No one really gets far without help.
We all know, even without the details, that each one’s life is fraught with joy and beauty mixed with the untold tales of struggles, challenges and problems that tend to overwhelm. No one is spared the latter.
Life can be an equal opportunity tormentor. Very few have charmed lives. It is how we deal with what life throws at us that define who we are. These twists, turns and blows every life goes through shape and mold us as they structure and restructure our innards and voila, here you are, warts and all.
Yes, you have ARRIVED.
Let me paraphrase what Friedrich Nietzsche said along these lines. Somehow, if these failures and setbacks don’t break us, they only make us stronger, more pliable and in the end, victorious. Yes, you can say quietly to yourself that, yes, somehow you have arrived.
We are still students of life learning from one another as we laugh and compare notes, celebrating moments and grieving quietly at times — a little wiser, and a little wider perhaps.
Mark my words, there will be a lot of humble bragging. Don’t get annoyed. It is part of reunions. We let people take a bow, maybe even take a victory lap. We are each a built-in audience for one another. We still need each other’s approbation. And if we have truly grown older gracefully, we ought to be big-hearted enough to be generous with sincere praise.
Reunions allow us to reconnect with those we chanced to walk with years ago. Life seemed lighter then. It was an innocent time when the sounds of youthful laughter filled the air after the last bell has rung to signal the end of a day in class. Someday, if we are so blessed, we can be reunited once again, perhaps, in another lighter, gravity-defying dimension, free of all cares and pretensions in that place we call heaven.
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Nota Bene: Monette Adeva Maglaya is SVP of Asian Journal Publications, Inc. To send comments, e-mail [email protected]
