A Blast From the Past

I went to LA this weekend for a reunion with some high school friends. Being with them brought you back to a past you sometimes forget actually existed. Reminiscing the fun and carefree days of our youth also brought back a flood of nostalgic feeling hanging on the sentiment. I remember a line from the movie, "An Affair to Remember," in which Deborah Kerr told Cary Grant when they were on the deck of the boat, "Winter must be cold for those with no warm memories... And we've already missed the spring!." How true, how true! As one gets older, the memories keep the heart warm and happy.

In high school I was associated with the most most popular girls in school but I was the meek girl who quietly went along with whatever my friends wanted. In fact, I was the type one would almost always forget that I was even there. We were kids trying to fit in a world of calculated risks and figuring out the essence of life and love. Because we went through an enormous change of hormones and emotions, we had our share of dramas and because we we wanted to test our wings we had our share of adventure, sometimes verging on stupidity and foolishness as we experimented with cigarettes and booze (well, actually mine were just cigarettes, the booze-I get the hives). But It was mostly clean fun. These experiences and the people that was part of it contributed a fraction of what we are today.

We talked about our present lives, relationships or husbands, kids, jobs, weight gain, and of course the usual comparing of notes regarding our sex lives. We complained about how age is catching up on us with high blood, allergies, cholesterol, sugar level and the dreaded menopause. We exchanged notes and hearsay (and got sad) about how some of our friends are still leading miserable lives because of the wrong choices they made earlier in their lives of which they still could not get out of. This we heard from friends and other friends so probably the stories got a tad more exagerated, some added a bit more misery to elicit pathos. Not that we want to believe it all, but since we have lost contact, this is all we knew about them.

Seeing friends of your youth and going back in time for that one weekend is both exhilarating and tiring. We vowed to do it once a year. I believe in making new friends but I try to keep old friends nearer to my heart.

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My flight was delayed for 6 hours because there was severe winds and thunderstorm in LV. While waiting at the airport I felt the tiredness surge into my body. But I also felt alive in a long, long time. And for the first time in my life, I slept amidst the turbulence of the plane in the middle of a thunderstorm above LV. A reunion is like the fierce wind in the desert at the onset of summer. It will always be a welcome blast.