My 30th reunion is coming in two years. I've got a lot of weight to lose before then; guess I'd better get started! *G*

I went to my 10th reunion only a few weeks after I'd broken up for the last time with my "high-school sweetheart", with whom I'd had a tumultuous on-again-off-again, break-up-to-make-up relationship for those intervening 10 years. At least I was wise enough never to have married him! Anyway, we managed to be fairly civil to one another at the reunion, but I remember that we both glared at a mutual friend who was trying to encourage the two of us to dance together!

I also remember listening to one of the guys who had been a "class clown" as he told his sad story: he'd married and had a daughter, but his wife had taken the daughter and disappeared. He wept as he described his attempts to find them. For me, that was quite an object lesson in the way life can change.

That's also where I'd heard that one of the kids who'd been in my "home room" had committed suicide. I had never suspected he'd been troubled in any way, but then he'd been a quiet guy who never drew attention to himself. No one seemed to know what had pushed him to take his own life... but then, no one seemed to know him as anything but an acquaintance (for all I know, that might have been the reason right there).

Some of my high-school friends were there, but far more of them – the ones with whom I'd had a warmer friendship – skipped that reunion. I skipped the 20th one, feeling that it would be just a repeat of the display of posturing (and, in some cases, downright lying) about people's post-high-school achievements. But I'm willing to try the 30th, hoping that my classmates will have matured past the one-ups-manship phase and will just enjoy chatting with one another. We'll see!