Tempus Fugit

Blog soundtrack:



1980.
2010.
Time flies!

Last Saturday night I attended my 30th high school reunion. It seemed just like yesterday (I now sound old even if I don’t look it!) that a few of my high school girlfriends took me to see the movie, Prom Night*, as a bon voyage before I left for Brandeis. The Summer of 1980 seemed to go by far too fast. Before I knew it, my Mom was dropping me off on moving in day; when she left, I remember wanting to run after her car and scream, “No. Take me back home!”

*Scary Movie Note: Back then, I liked to be scared. The last scary movie I watched was The Blair Witch Project; I slept with one eye open that whole night. And, I never wanted to watch another scary movie after that; as I got older, I realized real life was scary enough.

When I was little, my grandmother had a grandfather clock. It was a beautiful thing that bonged appropriately on the hour and maybe even on the half hour. It was also wisely inscribed with “Tempus fugit.”

Back then, I probably asked my Mom, “What is temp-us-fug-it?” She most likely responded, “It’s Latin for time flies.” And like Iz, in return, I probably asked a brain-numbing question such as, “Like Rocky the flying squirrel?” It wasn’t until I became a Latin scholar and realized I was as old as dirt that I was able to appreciate its full meaning.

Anyway, on Saturday night, I got all gussied up for the reunion. By the way, the black and white dress won in the poll. And, I wore it!



Story of the Dress Note: In 2008, I went to Philadelphia to see Colin Hay at the World Café; I bought this dress at a vintage store there. I think I only paid about $60 for it, and the owner threw in a black slip that had a few white paint stains on it for free saying that it was off to Goodwill if I didn't want it. That’s the slip I still wear under the dress, and the dress was quite the bargain, wasn’t it?

After getting dressed, I drove to Cathy (Lovely) and Phil’s house, because I was going to hitch a ride with them to the reunion. Cathy and Phil were high school sweethearts; three kids and 24 years later, they’re still together. ♥ Phil suggested a pre-reunion alcoholic beverage, and Cathy said, “Phil doesn’t want to be there too early!”

I could totally empathize with Phil’s “fashionably late” pain. So, I said, “Yes. A drink would be good,” acknowledging my totally anxious and nervous pain. Phil poured me a glass of wine, and we began to discuss reunion attendence, those who we knew were going and those who we thought might be going.

When the drinks were finished, we hit the road. The nice thing about the reunion was that it was being held at a country club a town over from the town in which we all grew up. Fittingly, Phil drove down the street my parents lived on as we made our way to Wayland; it was like the minute I stepped into Cathy and Phil’s minivan, I was transported back to another time, a wonderful time in my life.

We arrived fashionably late; the reunion started at 6:30, and I think we pulled in around 7pm. Upon seeing only 20 cars in the parking lot, someone said, “This is it?” Cathy noticed a group of golfers coming off the greens. Collectively, we deduced that half the cars could belong to golfers and the other half to reunion attendees; could it be that there were only 10 people at the reunion?!

We got out of the car and walked slowly through the parking lot. Just then, it seemed somewhat like walking through the woods of Maryland (see The Blair Witch Trials again). We were hesitantly waiting and wondering what exactly was behind the front door of the country club!

Just as we were about to go in the front door, there was a shout from the parking lot. We turned around. Cathy said, “It’s Anne and Laura.” If you’ve been reading my blog and taking notes, you know that Anne and Laura are Lovelies, too.

We stepped away from the front door; I swear I heard a collective sigh of relief from myself and my Ghost of High School Past team comprising Phil and Cathy. We walked over to meet Anne and Laura. Fortified with reinforcements, we walked toward the front door again, knowing that we were all in this damn reunion together!

Once through the door, there was a big table covered with name tags. I felt like we were soldiers invading a Nazi-occupied castle in WWII. I swear no one wanted to go first, and I can’t be sure, but I think I was pushed forward, because in an instant, I was saying my name, got my tag, and then one of the reunion coordinators was embracing me.

After I received my tag and groaned looking at my senior portrait, I began to half-heartedly pin it to my dress. I waited for the others. I glanced down again to look at my high school picture and thought, “Gawd, if only I knew then what I know now about concealer and fashion!”

We entered the venue, and it was quite lovely. Tables dotted the outline of the dance floor, and the hearth in the center was strewn with flowers and a big 30th balloon. The first person I saw was my friend, Amelia.

Somewhere along the path from the front door to my embrace of Amelia, I said, “I need a drink!” Phil offered to fulfill my need. And, then I ventured out onto the deck to take some pictures with Amelia, who I had known since third grade.

Once we arrived back inside, it seemed that everyone’s mantra for the night had been fashionably late and then some. I had been gone 20 minutes, and I now estimated the parking lot had 40 cars in it. I went to mingle, and then a very tall man said to me, “Jean?”

It was Kenny; he was the one who wrote the lovely note to me last Fall about my Dad. Before he could say anything I said, “Thank you so much for your email.” I hugged him, and then I kissed him on the cheek.

He said, “Your Dad was a nice guy.” I thanked him again. I had been there only 30 minutes, and my reunion had already been wonderful due to an emotional recollection, which evoked the memories of a father-and-child union that had been absent for over 9 years.

As the evening went on, I mingled but always with a Lovely by my side. (Marcia and Melissa, we missed you so much!) I barely ate dinner, because I spent so much time talking!

At first, I disliked my picture name tag, but as the night wore on, it was the only way I could determine, in some cases, who a person was. It wasn’t necessarily that the individual had changed that much. It was that it had been 30 years! Okay, here’s my name tag.



Secretly, during the course of the night, I hoped that someone would come up to me and say something profound to me. I wasn’t hoping for “I so had a crush on you.” I was hoping for “I remember when you said such-and-such in something-something class, and it made me want to laugh/vomit/join the Peace Corps.” At the very least, I expected someone to recruit me to sell Amway or convince me to buy “ocean front” property in Arizona, but that never happened.

Interestingly enough, I did the very same to a classmate. She suddenly appeared out of nowhere. I read her tag, which said, “Julie,” and I said, “Oh my God, your Dad was my doctor; he was nice.”

Oddly, she responded, “He was?” I told her he was. She explained that after her junior year, she completed her senior year at a private school. I then confessed to her that in 7th grade, I loved her sneakers...of all things! (Even back then, it was all about the shoes!)

As any sane person would, she looked at me strangely. I told her that she had a pair of Nike Bruins. I loved them, but my Mom would only buy me Jack Purcell sneakers; and here are a pair of Nike Bruins, though the black swoosh was not patent leather way back then.



I begged and pleaded with my Mom for months, asking her if I could have Julie's sneakers. I might have even intentionally defaced my Jack Purcell sneakers to expedite their aging process, so that I could be deemed worthy of new sneakers by my Mom. My Mom finally caved, and I may have even contributed an allowance or two for said sneakers.

Were they worth it? I wore them until they died. Of course to add more embarrassment to true confessions, I then told Julie that she had a sweater I adored, too!

All in all, I had a wonderful time. I saw people I hadn’t seen in ages; despite any popular or non-popular ranks in high school, they were all nice. Of course, a few, a relatively small few (read "Leslie"), were still the same; however, that’s to be expected.

Here’s a group of us. (Top row, L-R: Amelia, Cathy, Anne, and Moi. Bottom row, L-R: Allison, Laura, and Randi.



Here’s me and the Lovely Laura.



Though, I heard no earth-shattering confessions nor did I have any great revelations at my reunion, I did get a very lovely compliment. When I was going through the dinner line, I bumped into a fellow student, who I didn’t know that well way back then, and we said “Hello” to each other. She said, “That’s a great dress. I think you have the dress of the night!” “Dress of the night,” I’ll take that any day over a confession or a revelation!

And, here’s me when I got home at 12:30am. Yes, I felt a tad like Cinderella. This was all that was left of me - my vintage shoes, my pile ‘o pearls, and my name tag. Here lies Jean.



As with most reunions, there was plenty of time spent pondering who looked good and who didn’t. There were a lot of successful people there, no doubt about it. But as I scanned the crowd, I wondered, “Who amongst us is truly in a happy place in life thirty years later?”

To me, that was really the most important measure of the aging process. It was more important to feel good about your life than to look good as you went through it. I felt I looked pretty good; however, I didn’t feel good. But, today, I have high hopes for both looking good and feeling good at the next reunion. Here's to 2015! ♥

Tempus fugit ergo carpe diem!