June 01, 2005
10th Reunion
My dreaded 10th high school reunion invitation arrived in the mail a few months ago and I'm slated to drive up to it tomorrow. I had a minor breakdown shortly after getting the letter about it, possibly due to the fact that this year's reunion photo might include CHILDREN.
I feel like I'm the only member of my class without an advanced degree of some sort, or a least a spouse. The most I can claim is a fireplace and washer/dryer in my Brooklyn apartment (and I might not even have that soon). When you've gone to an elite (oppressive, high-pressure, competitive, screwed-up, insane, kick-you-out-for-doing-things-normal-adolescents-do) boarding school, reunions take on an entirely different dimension.
The prestige of the school makes you feel like you should at least be a foreign ambassador or running a brilliant startup by now. My latest theory is that alumni spend the first 10 years either trying to achieve this or figuring out that the expectation is (gasp) unrealistic. The latter group has a major breakdown somewhere between years six and nine and is only just coming to terms with being normal around the 10th. This is, of course, drastically oversimplifying things -- most alumni do really interesting things. I'm just trying to make myself feel better about my extended post-college procrastination.
You can't physically visit the place without feeling a combination of awe and repressed-memory recovery. It's a gorgeous campus. The teachers were phenomenal. On the flip side, the school politics are and were completely screwed up. The attitude of the administration toward disciplinary action is still infuriating. A special brand of conformity is king. The pretentiousness of it all makes you queasy, but the reputation for academic prestige is fully deserved. The whole experience of going there was pretty intense.
The 50-year reunion types get nostalgic and passionate about the school, but members of my class (save for the successful people) are a little more cautious. I decided to go, then decided not to, and eventually justified going by promising myself that if it's really uncomfortable I'll just go hiking somewhere else in New Hampshire. I know I'm not the only one with qualms, either. We'll see how it goes. Maybe I'll bring a flask of brandy for the hard parts. It is, after all, the location of my very first drinking adventure.
Posted by csageday at June 1, 2005 11:59 AM