Embracing memories or avoiding memories? (friend, adult, married, date)
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Thats quite admirable. A lot of people don't care, or don't want to be found. There have been some interesting stories come out of my h.s. reunions. Totally unexpected things.
Thats quite admirable. A lot of people don't care, or don't want to be found. There have been some interesting stories come out of my h.s. reunions. Totally unexpected things.
Certainly after 50 years! there are people who don't want to be found. This man has asked me about people he can't find on social media. One woman, a friend, is still holding on to disliking her life in high school and won't even update him on basics (I think she feels her update isn't impressive enough or something).
Another guy I've known since ninth grade ridiculed me for going to the 5th reunion when he had nothing impressive to report. Interestingly he is now interested in reporting his self-made success. Ego...
Certainly after 50 years! there are people who don't want to be found. This man has asked me about people he can't find on social media. One woman, a friend, is still holding on to disliking her life in high school and won't even update him on basics (I think she feels her update isn't impressive enough or something).
Another guy I've known since ninth grade ridiculed me for going to the 5th reunion when he had nothing impressive to report. Interestingly he is now interested in reporting his self-made success. Ego...
I think once you get to 40/50+ years post HS it becomes less about impressing people and more about reconnecting with people who shared a milestone time in your life. Not everyone has a desire to do that and that's o.k., too.
I can never figure out why high school graduation is seen as much of anything at all, least of all a 'milestone'.
I understand it can mean transition into college or university or trade school.....or a job and work.
But ANYONE can graduate from high school. It's no big achievement. I don't understand all the 'I'm so proud of you', as if high school graduation is a big, monumental achievement.
(except for those who struggle to get through high school or those who want to drop out or those who actually drop out)
I can't think of any time in the past I would want to return to, save for a few moments I had with kind relatives. Driving around my former hometown would be strange, as nothing is as I remember it and anyway those memories are inextricably linked with my horrid parents, so I've never had a longing to return. In fact, I dread going back there. And now that I don't have to, I don't.
Life has turned out to be nothing like I thought it would be. My high school boyfriend was arrested a few years ago on charges of possessing child pornography. I tried to look up his whereabouts recently and found that he is in hiding under an assumed name. I don't know what happened to his wife and his sporting goods business.
I think this all pretty much comes under the heading of "avoiding memories".
Fluffy, can you imagine as a 60 plus woman finding out that your husband was arrested for that awful thing? Nothing worse! You dodged a bullet there.
In spite of your childhood, you were determined to escape it and have a good life now. Even though not perfect (whose is?), you are not homeless or living with a family member in older age.
You have options and even during COVID have done some very positive things health wise.
In most middle-class areas, it's not an achievement, it's an assumption. But for so many other people, it is an achievement, and used to be more so.
I didn't legally graduate because I cut too many days, but they let me out anyway. My sister didn't legally graduate because of a mental breakdown, but they passed her along anyway.
My mother didn't finish high school because she was too poor.
My father finished and promptly got drafted for the European war.
In most middle-class areas, it's not an achievement, it's an assumption. But for so many other people, it is an achievement, and used to be more so.
I didn't legally graduate because I cut too many days, but they let me out anyway. My sister didn't legally graduate because of a mental breakdown, but they passed her along anyway.
My mother didn't finish high school because she was too poor.
My father finished and promptly got drafted for the European war.
My American -born grandmother got through the second grade and then went to work in a box factory because child labor was still legal then.
I can't think of any time in the past I would want to return to, save for a few moments I had with kind relatives. Driving around my former hometown would be strange, as nothing is as I remember it and anyway those memories are inextricably linked with my horrid parents, so I've never had a longing to return. In fact, I dread going back there. And now that I don't have to, I don't.
Life has turned out to be nothing like I thought it would be. My high school boyfriend was arrested a few years ago on charges of possessing child pornography. I tried to look up his whereabouts recently and found that he is in hiding under an assumed name. I don't know what happened to his wife and his sporting goods business.
I think this all pretty much comes under the heading of "avoiding memories".
Someone whose posts make make me laugh so easily, even when you are not trying to be funny, must be quite wonderful. Happy new year to you, fluffy.
Certainly after 50 years! there are people who don't want to be found. This man has asked me about people he can't find on social media. One woman, a friend, is still holding on to disliking her life in high school and won't even update him on basics (I think she feels her update isn't impressive enough or something).
Another guy I've known since ninth grade ridiculed me for going to the 5th reunion when he had nothing impressive to report. Interestingly he is now interested in reporting his self-made success. Ego...
Just attended a multi-class reunion (5 years). It was better than I thought. So many are gone. Some wonderful people too.
One girl came up to me and told me that I was the only one she could speak to in HS about her "issue" -
I must have looked puzzled because I did not remember; then as she told me, I did remember. She had gotten pregnant end of junior year; parents shipped her off to an "Unwed Mother's Place" where she gave the baby up for adoption (a girl). She talked to me at length about never being contacted by her child. She returned to HS after the birth (where, apparently I was one of the few who spoke to her!), went to college, married, had a lovely family-all boys! - lives in the Bay Area.
When we go out there, I plan to visit her. Her husband and my husband seemed to get along fine too!
I feel I was meant to attend just to see her.
When I entered HS, I was working to help support my parents and had more responsibilities than most.
To feel that I made a positive difference in someone's life back then and it helped them go on in a positive way made me feel like my life mattered in some way. This was the first reunion she'd ever been to.
A girl who lived on my street and was very nasty to me during HS also came. She had never been before either. However, 20 years ago, she apologized to me on the phone for how she treated me and my family during those years and I forgave her back then. Because of my own mother handled it (gracefully) and then when she was more grown up, she put those 2 things together, became a Christian and had 4 children and now has 10 grandchildren. Seems very happy and her priorities are in the right places.
Our graduating class was around 1000 so figure 5 years 5000 people graduated and then around 250 came to this reunion (excluding spouses, SO's, etc) - really, the number was over 500 which is the number the committee needed to make it work. It was at a hotel where you could stay and was a 2 night event.
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Well - you were determined
