10-year Reunion

This past weekend was my 10-year high school reunion. I was unable to attend because Tim and I were concluding our anniversary vacation and then with my parents for the holiday weekend. Part of me wanted to go in order to see old friends but then the other part didn’t care much that I missed it. I’ve lost touch with most of my classmates and haven’t seen nearly all of them since the day we put on our cap and gown and walked across the stage to accept our diplomas. As I’m sure it is with many, I have grown distant from those childhood friendships and feel disconnected from my hometown, as God carried me on to other things and took me other places.

This weekend, I was telling my parents how my fellow classmates are spread out around the country – some up in the Northeast, others down South with me, a few out West and even one or two abroad. I don’t have the exact figures but would estimate that more than half of my classmates don’t live within 125 miles of where we graduated and over one-third don’t reside in the same home state. It seems that my generation went farther away for college and was more likely to take their first job in a city that was miles away from where they grew up.

With this trend, are high school reunions becoming a thing of the past? I researched class reunions on the internet but was unsuccessful in finding much of anything that would confirm or deny that reunions are becoming less popular and less attended than in years previous. One site did mention that the cost of traveling is a major factor in a person’s decision on whether or not to attend. Had we not been visiting my parents, the cost of traveling 600 miles one-way would have been the deciding factor for me – no way.

Apparently this is the year for high school reunions in my family. My brother’s 15-year reunion is later this summer and my dad also had a high school reunion the same time as mine. (I won’t embarrass him by telling you what year his was.)When I asked if he was attending, my dad replied, “I haven’t gone to one yet, why start now?”

If you’re in charge of planning your class reunion or want helpful information about reunions in general then check out this WEBSITE.