My 20 year high school reunion is in 53 days. If you are trying to guess my age based on this, you are going to off. I didn’t graduate at 18. I am really looking forward to going home and seeing everyone. My high school experience was different than most. I grew up in a small, economically disadvantaged town where people worked hard for a living and stuck together. Our 10 year reunion wasn’t about returning home and showing everyone up. It was a celebration of how far everyone had come, and an opportunity to meet their spouses and children. I would definitely mark the 10 year down as one of my top 100 days, and I expect the 20 year to be the same.
I would like to return home looking my best, so I am challenging myself to lose 10 pounds (approximately 1 pound every five days for the next 50 days) and to run 2 miles in under 15 minutes. Lowering the number on the scale doesn’t mean anything unless one’s overall physical fitness also improves. Being able to run 2 miles in 7.5 minutes each will demonstrate an overall improvement in physical fitness, and it will be a fun challenge. I will be doing a benchmark 2 mile run on Tuesday to see where I am.
The 20 year high school class reunion is a milestone in most everyone’s life, and I think that even if one doesn’t go to their reunion, it is a period of time that has them reflecting on life. There’s the obvious – time flies. And then from there, I think this reflection varies wildly by individual. My first thoughts are of how grateful I am that we haven’t lost a class member. This suggests that I know a few people with nine lives considering that guns, fire, and booze were a part of plenty of days in my youth. I also have a class member and close friend that was on the BP rig that blew up in 2010. He had left the explosion area just minutes before it happened. We all thank God for his safe return home to his beautiful wife and children.
The second thing that I think about is how far I have come. I don’t think of it from a monetary or career ladder standpoint. I think about it from a self confidence and happiness standpoint. The extent to which I was insecure and self conscious in my youth is sad. Having a mother that was the same way that reminded me constantly of what was wrong with me was the biggest contributing factor. Feeling this way all the time made me really unhappy. She was this way herself until she found out that she was terminally ill. It was then that she laid her burdens down, stopped worrying what everyone thought about her, and she embraced life. I embraced it with her. She died knowing that not only was she free of the burden of public opinion but so was I.
The third thing that I think about is my perspective on life. Out of high school, I had no perspective at all. At my 10 year class reunion, I was gaining perspective. Today, I have a perspective on life that most do not find until they are much older, or they never find it at all. A great deal of this perspective has come to me in the last five years with my mother’s death, my divorce and many of the adventures that I talk about in this blog.
The last thing that I think about is – can the 20 year reunion be as great a party as the 10 year? There is quite a story to tell about the 10 year!
Today, I am confident in who I am. I believe in myself, and I don’t worry about what I can’t control. I do what I believe is right, and I accept the outcome. I am human, I have my setbacks, and my ups and downs, but I am living an amazing life. I look forward to celebrating this life and the lives of my 60 classmates of the High School class of ’94.