Another Trip into the Time Machine . . .

For the second time in three weeks, I spent some time back in high school over the weekend. I got an e-mail from Lynn last week that she was trying to put together an "Impromptu Gathering" of some of our classmates at a sports bar about 20 minutes from my house. I have Facebook to blame again -- Lynn found me about three days after I signed up so I could watch that video. I didn't decide to go until the absolute last minute -- Saturday night, I literally was cleaning old clothes out of my closet to give to Goodwill, and I suddenly dropped what I was doing and decided that I was going to go see my friends.



There were six of us, along with Simon and Gary on either end of this picture who are next to their spouses. And for those of you who read my post about rediscovering my friend Becki in Texas last month, she knew about this gathering and texted back and forth with us while we were there. The classmates (left to right): Julie, me, Robin, Randy, Tad, and Lynn. We all started kindergarten in 1963 (Tad's parents didn't send their kids to kindergarten, so he started first grade with us).

For a few hours, we didn't have kids -- we WERE kids again. And we didn't have mortgage payments and family squabbles and the stresses of everyday life. That was very refreshing. And it didn't matter that all six of us didn't do everything together growing up -- we still have bonds from our childhood.

Yesterday, I had a warm feeling, but I still couldn't quite put it into words. Then I read Tad's blog this morning -- he said it much better than I ever could . . .

"It's ironic. When you go to college and get away from your high school classmates, you think 'None of these people at the university know me. They don't know my past, my problems, my failures, my mistakes. I can be anyone I want to be now.' And then 34 years later, when you meet up with those same high school classmates, you think 'All of these people know me. They know my past, my problems, my failures, my mistakes. And I don't have to be someone I'm not.' Last night was fun."

Amen to that . . .