30 Years

This year is my 30-year high school reunion.

That number is a little difficult for me to comprehend. High school feels like a lifetime ago, but it doesn’t feel like thirty years. The way it feels is harder to name—something intangible. I suppose that’s the strangeness of time, and all the life that happens while it quietly moves forward.

High school was a hard time for me.

I was shy, insecure, quiet, overweight.

A good student. Responsible. Observant. Smart.

But I felt completely out of place.

I imagine a lot of people felt that way.

In a small community, everyone knew who I was—but very few people actually knew me. I wasn’t popular, but I wasn’t disliked either. I just… existed somewhere in the middle.

I loved singing. Choir was probably my favorite class.

My biggest dream was to be a singer and an actress.

More than anything, I needed connection—friends, family, love, attention.

That season of my life held a lot. And my first relationship became something I would never wish on anyone. It shaped me in ways I didn’t understand for a long time—I had nightmares about it for decades.

That’s all I’ll say about that.

I didn’t go to my 10-year reunion, even though I was in town. I had no desire to revisit that time of my life.

I ended up planning the 20-year reunion because no one else could. I’m sure a lot of my classmates wondered who I was and how I somehow ended up with that gig.

But it turned out to be great. Everyone had fun, including me.

And now, here we are.

2026. Thirty years later.

I’m not planning the reunion this time.

My bandwidth is limited, and honestly, I just don’t want to. I wasn’t even sure if I was going to go. I’m still not 100%. Maybe a trip somewhere amazing will come up between now and then.

But today, something unexpected happened.

Two of my old classmates reached out to me—people I barely spoke to in high school. Just to say hi.

I ended up on the phone with one of them for over an hour.

It was… kind of incredible.

I feel like I have a new best friend.

At one point she said something that stayed with me. She talked about how we didn’t really know each other back then, but now—after all these years, all this life—we do.

And there’s something real in that.

A connection that was quietly built in classrooms and hallways, in shared spaces and passing moments. Something that didn’t look like much at the time… but didn’t disappear either.

And that isn’t nothing.

Now, I’m leaning a little more toward going.