A few weeks ago I did something that I will probably regret later: I volunteered to plan my high school reunion.
It has been almost 10 years since me, my husband, and our friends were students at Richmond High School, home of the Blue Devils. Our graduating class was about 150 people, a majority of whom we had in class since kindergarten.
The person who was going to plan it had to step back due to her job schedule, and between my husband, myself and our friends we have a close-knit circle of six members of the RHS class of 2013. I volunt-told them that they are now on my planning committee (some of them just for moral support).
I’m actually pretty good at event planning. I’ve helped plan more weddings, showers and parties than I probably should have at my age, so the actual planning part isn’t difficult. At least not yet. We rented the recreation center, got pricing for catering at the local pizza joint (it’s only been 10 years, pizza is as fancy as we get), and I made invitations and reached out to almost everyone in our class. I know we’ll have stuff to do later, but it’s under control right now.
But what’s weird is knowing that ten years have gone by, and I’m still spending time with the same people as I was back then. Some of them even longer, as one of my best friend was my best friend in kindergarten. The six of us have memories that go back over 20 years, of teachers, field trips, bus rides and plenty of other stuff because we all grew up in the same place.
Living in a small town was something special, even if we didn’t always get along with our classmates. It’s been 10 years, and everyone is just excited to reconnect and have a fun night.
So maybe I’ll regret volunteering to do all that work, but at least I’m not alone. I’ll have the same people helping me that I always have for over 20 years. I think that’s what school spirit is all about.