Looking Back, the Way I Saw It

They were all there: the Cute Boys and the Mean Girls, the Wallflowers and the Late Bloomers, The Ones Who Tried Too Hard and the Ones Who Gave Up Too Soon,  the Golden Ones and the Ones Whose Lives Got Tarnished. The Cool Kids clustered together, and those of us who looked from the outside in back then still spent part of our evening 40 years later doing it now.

That's how it looked if you didn't bother to look again, anyway. I am learning that we all felt like An Other in 1973 and the only difference between the Wallflowers and the Mean Girls was that we let our insecurities eat away at us while they let theirs feed on others. That's a bit of wisdom I wish I could time travel back and impart to my 14 year old self.

But now, all these decades later, we discovered cracks in the walls where grace has gained some foothold. Time has a way of softening the edges of all the hard memories, just as it has softened our jowls, blurred our vision, and dulled our hearing. Forty years is plenty enough time to hold a heartache before letting it go, and more than enough time to watch a bridge burn and be grateful that the embers no longer have the power to burn our feet.

My own handful of closest friends back in those days were there, and I hope that they know just how much their presence in my life -- when we were all trying to find our safest places --saved me. They let me in their boat back then, when all the rules had changed for me, and I cannot thank them enough for letting me right back in despite all the time we let get away from us.
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There were folks I hardly recognized. Some had grown into the awkward features their teenage years had saddled them with, and others had finally relaxed and let themselves go, and yet what had changed about none of us were our eyes and our smiles. There were so many of those last Saturday night. 

There were shared memories, good ones, mostly, because it was a night for fun. I cannot speak for anyone else, but the older I get the more the more delighted I am to find other people who remember why we weren't supposed to go out with the boys in Chisholm (although I did) and how disobeying our mothers and driving "across the bypass" was just about the most exciting thing ever. There was talk of Shakey's Pizza, of teachers who pinched and paddled, of harmonies sung in the cafeteria, and of the classmates who died too soon. 

We snuck out of houses together, yards got rolled, we suffered through slam books and sweltering days in class with nothing but squeaking metal fans to keep us cool. We wondered aloud if Sadie Hawkins dances still happen anywhere, and if kids might still be as in awe of any of the adults in their school as we were of Mrs. Jones, Mrs. McClurkin, Mrs. Rahn, or Coach Garner. 

If pressed, I'm sure The Cheerleaders would have remembered every step to the routine they did to "Tears of a Clown" as easily as we Glee Club Members would have remembered all the harmonies to "Battle Hymn of the Republic." I am not so sure the Football Team would have fared well in a scrimmage, but I have no doubt they'd have been game to try. 

                                       

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There was a supermoon the night of the reunion. It was apt. 

We shone so brightly in 1973, and for a couple hours last weekend we did again. 

Photographs courtesy of Thomas Lucas Photography