On A Totally Different Subject

I missed the big 10-year high school reunion this last year, despite having talked to the old class president a year in advance.

Today she sent me the photo album from the reunion. (It only took her a whole year and a half)

As I watched all 148 photos play back, I recognized only half of them. I only remembered a third of their names.

I did see a few ex-girlfriends holding up kids, which was kind of cool. I don't know why it made me happy. I saw a few guys from the football team, though no one I was particularly fond of.

A part of me is glad I never spent the money going across the country to see people I barely paid attention to in high school. Another part of me is wondering if there is something to be said about those I was closest with. We always felt we were above it all anyway.

Not better than everyone else, just more aware of certain things. We thought outside suburbia. We were Pre-Columbine, but knew it was coming.

The new generation of a social conscience. We weren't fighting to end a war, we were fighting for an answer.

Our best voice silenced too early, the rest of us just went to the backroom and moped around.

I've been thinking about Kurt so much this week. I've been remembering a lot of things, thoughts I had back then, about who I wanted to be. What I thought my generation was capable of. Now I've come full circle.

Those things I thought about saying and doing, they are coming back from the depths of my memory.

My friends weren't at the reunion because we only tolerated those other types while we had to. I remember now.