WEP Aug 2017: REUNIONS

For the first time, I'm participating in the Write...Edit...Publish (WEP) bloghop challenge. For August, the challenge is REUNIONS. Below is my entry of 760 words, NCCO (no critique, comment only please). While it may only be meaningful to us baby boomers, I hope you will still enjoy it.

On August 4th 1990, I attended my twenty-fifth high school reunion. This was my first one and I was terrified yet exhilarated. In school, I was not cute or pretty, not funny, not athletic, not artistic, not musical, not much of anything other than fairly smart. I had one close girl friend but tended to be a loner who desperately wished they were an insider. It wasn't to happen.

But fast forward twenty-five years, I was married to the love of my life, had a wonderful career and had grown into my looks. Success in life encouraged me to attend the reunion and show what I had become.

I wrote a speech, the first and last speech I would ever write. Here is what I said...

A TWENTY-FIVE YEAR RETROSPECTIVE

Dear Classmates,

Here I sit reflecting on the past twenty-five years. Where did it go? Twenty-five years, a quarter of a century!

We left high school with enthusiasm and high hopes. Some went to college, some to work. Some got married, some didn't.

The 60's were a radical change for some of us - free love, drugs, rock music and Vietnam. For others, time seemed to move more slowly, perhaps even standing still.

The 70's started out on the same 'HIGH' as the 60's. Make love, not war. Of course some of us were too busy with our growing families and advancing careers to notice. Others were still living day by day. But by the end of the 70's we started to notice a change, we were settling more and more into the mold set by our parents. We changed some of the angles, maybe smoothed some of the edges, but it was still the same mold of responsibility eventually accepted by all generations.

In the 80's we started to take a closer look at ourselves. Some careers were flourishing, others were dying. Some went back to school, others changed direction. Marriages came and went. We had to deal with single parenting, blended families and step-children. The world around us was changing rapidly, sometimes more rapidly than we could accept. Our children were facing a world vastly different from the one in which we had grown up in. As the 80's drew to a close we realized that we had officially passed into the world of middle-age, even though we knew in our hearts that middle aged people were really 10 years older than us!

Now here it is 1990 and we're looking at not only a new decade but the end of a century. Where will we go from here? What forces will shape our next 10 years? How will we fare in the days to come?

Well over the last 25 years I've learned one very important lesson - the value of friendship. No matter how bad things may seem, friends will help you through. Some of us are fortunate enough to be married to our best friend, others can count on family. But the friendships sustained over the years will always be of great value to us. They allow us to maintain a balance in our lives. Some of these friendships were started right here in high school. Others came later in life. Some of us had close friends but lost touch, others still remain in close contact.

So keep this thought in mind tonight - renew those friendships that have strayed, maybe start some new ones. But no matter what happens, let's have a good time and a great decade!

After I gave it, I was asked if I was in Toastmasters (no, I was not). I was asked what happened to the wallflower (she grew up). I was congratulated on the speech.

I felt validated....no longer the wallflower of years past, no longer the outsider. I had grown and blossomed, I was welcomed into the inner circle.

But I discovered that it no longer mattered...