Go. Bring your guitar. Encourage other old classmates who perform to also do so, and set up a talent show in the evening. That way, you'll all be working together to do something in the present, with an eye toward future possibilities, rather than merely getting stuck in past reminiscences. If you can get beyond the past, these people with whom you once shared your life could become a part of your future, if you'll let them.

I used to go to my high school reunions yearly (it was a small school), and struck up ongoing friendships and relationships with schoolmates, some of whom were a generation apart from me. But beyond sharing a past in the school, we shared our opinions and experiences with choruses, politics, religious observances, how the school ought to be run, hiking in the woods. And then we acted on them: we met at other times in the year to go to a concert together, or to hike in the woods, or to constructively criticize the school administration.

Turn your reunion into a building-block for ongoing relationships. But if you're just going to sit around and get drunk and wallow in the past, you might find it gets old fast.

--Charlie Baum