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GRAY

Monday Mullings: High School reunions are raw.Don't you agree?

Reunions are often precarious settings and I must admit I was a tad apprehensive about attending my 5 year high school reunion over the weekend. While I was well liked during high school, I always thought reunions are about what you are doing “Now”, and quite frankly, despite a couple accomplishments since graduating in 04’, I do not feel like I’ve accomplished much to write home about. Couple that with my expectations that my most of my former classmates would be in med school or law school….and couple that with fact that I probably told everyone in high school that by 2009, I’d be a millionaire or in the NBA… (why would I be in the NBA)….and yea,…basically it felt a tad wak to realize that when asked what I was up to these days, I was going to reply, “I blog.”

But I couldn’t have been more wrong. It was not a status check on where people were with their careers or a competition about who has become the most baller since high school. But instead, it was a party, a straight up high school party and it was fun as hell. The different little clicks in our class all came together for a chance to booze like it was that one kid’s house whose parents always leave for the weekend. People who I had not seen or spoken to since graduation were mixing it up like we all had been in school for 5 days straight ready to let loose on the weekend. It was a ball, and Im mulling on it today because I feel that high school reunions get a bad rep for some reason.

In mainstream society so many people view high school reunions as elitist, or snobbish occasions in which narcissistic people enjoy themselves because they can revel in and re-live their high school popularity. While reunions are a staple of private schools and schools in areas with a small population, plenty of high schools do not even host reunions, so those who attended such schools may have negative feeling toward the very idea of a high school reunion in general. But, all in all, the one I just attended was a high school party, which was quite welcome, and broke the monotony of the typical weekends of a young adult. I didn’t wait in line at a lounge or club, I didn’t struggle to get a bartender’s attention while people bump into me while dancing to Sir Mix-a-Lots horrible big “butts song”, and I didn’t exchange hard looks at a Mexican restaurant with other customers disappointed in their night out. But I met up with some friends as if we just got out of class a couple hours ago, changed clothes and started celebrating that school doesn’t start again until Monday. Yes, I went to a private high school. Yes, it has a reputation for being elitist, but the fun I had was real as hell and had nothing to do with being “cool” or recapturing “glory days” or anything lame that’s normally associated with high school reunions. I’m probably not going to kick it with the majority of the people I saw at my reunion anytime in the near future. But in 5 more years, I wouldn’t mind getting an update at another lil high school party once that kid’s parents leave town again.