Reunions
As my partner is contemplating whether or not to go to his 20th high school reunion, he faced the same "should I go, should I not" conflict that many people feel when it comes time for one of their reunions (high school or college). Having gone to my 10th, I can appreciate the mix of feelings that preludes the event, and the experience after. As we talked, I realized what may be an unexpected piece of the emotional puzzle:
The feelings one confronts when contemplating a reunion are feelings evoked by contemplating one's own mortality.
For those whose lives have changed beyond recognition since high school, considering a reunion too easily reminds them that everything that thing they have achieved may be illusory, that once they go back they will hold the same social position as they did in high school. As if their current self might die upon entering a reunion event.
For others who have not allowed themselves to evolve beyond their high school persona (too many), the event can feel like a savior, a way to stave off the feeling that their old self (the one they liked and remember) has died. Attendance becomes a way of pretending that who they were and who they relished being has not passed away, that they are not a mere ghost of their once selves.
And, of course, one can have both sets of feelings at once: that what was once good about who we were might no longer be, that the good of who we became is insubstantial. The fragility of our whole life, the possibility that all progress and evolution and living might just be imaginary, temporary: that is the undercurrent of it all.
Yet, for many who do attend, they often come away with a sense of satisfaction at having gone. It is a satisfaction that can't be promised to those who have not attended one, yet communicating its power is inspirational. We feel satisfied because we have completed our mourning or the selves we once were, for the selves that we may not have become, and embracing the selves that we are. The fear of death--in this one instance--has been faced, and has itself died, while we live on.
