Reunions Are Hard

Reunions are Hard

By

Davin J. Carr-Chellman

Summertime brings reunions and the summer of 2018 packed a wallop with my 25th high school class reunion (Yough ‘93 — go Cougars!) and the 80th Chellman family reunion.

Reunions are hard. I don’t think I’m odd in having spent some portion of my early adulthood running away from my adolescent self. Reunions force us to revisit those days.

From the perspective of living happily, my guess is many folks have decided that high school reunions aren't worth the trouble, effort, or pain. Over the course of 25 years of reunions, 30% of the class is a consistent turnout. I don't blame the 70% for not appearing: these gatherings call to mind our adolescent insecurities and the pain of mean girls, bullies, and social hierarchies. In the interest of maximizing positivity and minimizing negativity, an every-five-year reminder of high school relationships can seem counterproductive. The gathering itself can become a breeding ground for pissing contests as folks jump at the chance to demonstrate their successes. Reunions might even be seen as disingenuous. Classmates, with a few exceptions, are usually not part of our everyday life, friendships, and decisions. If these folks weren’t friends during our youth and aren’t friends now, why should someone pretend to be friends once every five years? Eliminating pretense is a worthy life goal.

As I said, I don't blame the 70% -- these are legitimate concerns and they cross my mind with the advent of each reunion. The interpersonal challenges presented by these occasions are very real and require active management to avoid. It can be exhausting. On the other hand, so far, each reunion has offered so much more than pretense, pissing contests, and bad memories.

The folks attending my high school reunions have been generous, forgiving, down-to-earth, kind, curious, and usually sober. There is genuine value to be had in spending time with people who knew you at your most vulnerable, awkward, and impressionable stages of life. It's likely that a significant portion of your most foolish moves happened either with or in front of these people. Crimes and misdemeanors aside, realizing that those moves don't matter so much anymore is huge. Remembering the classmates, teachers, and school personnel no longer with us is sobering, humbling, and powerful. More mysterious and deep, though, is the homecoming itself. Knowing and appreciating where you come from -- returning home -- like Odysseus -- is part of our evolutionary fabric. It's in our bones. Yes, knowing where you've been helps guide and inform where you might be headed. Yes, addressing demons and confronting fears is a salve. Yes, the opportunity to be kind to people who weren’t kind to you (and vice versa) can liberate a conscience. In truth, though, it cuts deeper. Rekindling the shared and collective memory of this community can offer a kind of freedom.

Theologian Will Willimon tells his students, "If you don't know to whom you belong, who it is who awaits you, you're apt to be the willing victim of anybody blowing through town who promises some means of overcoming your sense of emptiness. When you stand before the powers of the corporation or the conformist pressures of the group, the totalitarian tendencies of modern life or even an IRS audit, it is freedom to know that they don't own you." How does one learn the provenance of this kind of ownership without returning to the source, the primordial stew, of the face in the mirror? Go to your reunion.

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