[301/365] reunion
Oct. 28th, 2019 07:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguist"So I don't know if that's a thing you'd be interested in," Mom said on Skype last night and it was all I could do not to reply with "I'd rather set my hair on fire" or something. Becaue she was telling me someone from my high school class had called her and one of the things they'd talked about is this twenty-year high-school reunion that is apparently being planned.
I knew about it because I've had a Facebook message about it from someone I've exchanged a couple of messages with and another random person, both of whom I hadn't talked to since high school. One I was friendly with and one my mom hated so much she hated someone else who had the same first name who she always confused with this girl. The latter seemed like the more official message and to be fair was from, if she's still anything like she was in high school, the kind of person who'd organize a reunion.
I mean, the fact that I haven't talked to a single person in my graduating class since we graduated is probably some indication of how likely I am to schlep across an ocean to go to a reunion, so I was a little surprised that Mom didn't know whether or not I'd be interested. But then she doesn't know I stopped eating meat before I got married and I've been telling her that ever since, so maybe I shouldn't expect too much? I wouldn't have gone to it even if I lived nearby. I hated high school, the few real friends I did make were younger than me so none of them are going to be there anyway, I don't want to have to go and pretend to be straight and cis and monogamous (and I would have to pretend to be all those things because if I didn't it would get back to my parents before the night was out), I don't want to turn up and go "yeah it's been twenty fucking years and I just graduated college now haha!"
Though it's not as if everyone else's life is going to plan. The person who called my mom, K, wasn't exactly anything to do with the reunion, she just knew about it and must've asked my mom if I did or if I'd be likely to turn up or whatever. Mom said K's on her second marriage and it's a lot better than the first one. But they can't have kids and can't adopt, and I can't remember the reason her little brother isn't having kids but I know Mom said K's mom is sad she won't have grandchildren and I winced inwardly on hearing that but my parents have always been so nice and non-pressurey about this: "well that's how life goes sometimes," Mom told me that she'd told K.
We've never talked about me not having kids. I'm sometimes ashamed that I expected guilt-tripping from them but there's never been a word of it in all this time, which is a hell of a thing considering that I know they'd love to be grandparents and I know they'd be good at it. But maybe it's easier that I'm so far away: even if I had kids they'd only seem them a couple weeks a year. And they've got family-of-choice grandkids: their great-niblings and my mom's friends' grandchildren who she babysits and has pictures of on her fridge and buys presents for and all that.
The same call involved an update about someone else my age (though not from my school) who Mom said "...just got out of rehab, did I tell you about that?" No of course she didn't. But tehre is a little talk about things like this, and divorce and childlessness, and oddly all this is comforting because when I was younger such things were never talked about. The impossibility of anything going wrong was one thing that made it so difficult for me when I had to leave college without finishing: I just had no idea what happened to people who fell off the road map of how life was supposed to go.
Anyway, K wanted my address and Mom gave it to her, she said she'd like to be in touch, and I hope I hear from her, that'd be nice.
Not going to the damn reunion though. Ugh.
I knew about it because I've had a Facebook message about it from someone I've exchanged a couple of messages with and another random person, both of whom I hadn't talked to since high school. One I was friendly with and one my mom hated so much she hated someone else who had the same first name who she always confused with this girl. The latter seemed like the more official message and to be fair was from, if she's still anything like she was in high school, the kind of person who'd organize a reunion.
I mean, the fact that I haven't talked to a single person in my graduating class since we graduated is probably some indication of how likely I am to schlep across an ocean to go to a reunion, so I was a little surprised that Mom didn't know whether or not I'd be interested. But then she doesn't know I stopped eating meat before I got married and I've been telling her that ever since, so maybe I shouldn't expect too much? I wouldn't have gone to it even if I lived nearby. I hated high school, the few real friends I did make were younger than me so none of them are going to be there anyway, I don't want to have to go and pretend to be straight and cis and monogamous (and I would have to pretend to be all those things because if I didn't it would get back to my parents before the night was out), I don't want to turn up and go "yeah it's been twenty fucking years and I just graduated college now haha!"
Though it's not as if everyone else's life is going to plan. The person who called my mom, K, wasn't exactly anything to do with the reunion, she just knew about it and must've asked my mom if I did or if I'd be likely to turn up or whatever. Mom said K's on her second marriage and it's a lot better than the first one. But they can't have kids and can't adopt, and I can't remember the reason her little brother isn't having kids but I know Mom said K's mom is sad she won't have grandchildren and I winced inwardly on hearing that but my parents have always been so nice and non-pressurey about this: "well that's how life goes sometimes," Mom told me that she'd told K.
We've never talked about me not having kids. I'm sometimes ashamed that I expected guilt-tripping from them but there's never been a word of it in all this time, which is a hell of a thing considering that I know they'd love to be grandparents and I know they'd be good at it. But maybe it's easier that I'm so far away: even if I had kids they'd only seem them a couple weeks a year. And they've got family-of-choice grandkids: their great-niblings and my mom's friends' grandchildren who she babysits and has pictures of on her fridge and buys presents for and all that.
The same call involved an update about someone else my age (though not from my school) who Mom said "...just got out of rehab, did I tell you about that?" No of course she didn't. But tehre is a little talk about things like this, and divorce and childlessness, and oddly all this is comforting because when I was younger such things were never talked about. The impossibility of anything going wrong was one thing that made it so difficult for me when I had to leave college without finishing: I just had no idea what happened to people who fell off the road map of how life was supposed to go.
Anyway, K wanted my address and Mom gave it to her, she said she'd like to be in touch, and I hope I hear from her, that'd be nice.
Not going to the damn reunion though. Ugh.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-28 09:19 pm (UTC)I am endlessly blessed that my school was so small that we don't have reunions.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-28 09:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-28 09:25 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-28 09:56 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-28 09:44 pm (UTC)My school has been closed as 'failing', at least twice, since I left it, but I don't think I would go to a reunion. I have a few friends from school but I see them anyway, and not watered down with people who were mean to me.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-28 09:58 pm (UTC)Quite! Though my limited interactions with people who were mean to me seem to have been people who grew out of being Mean Girls. Or maybe they're just a little unsure of how to treat me since I'm the one who ended up moving to England and that's just inherently weird but apparently also Good.
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-29 07:36 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-28 11:03 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-29 01:03 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-29 07:37 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-31 10:01 pm (UTC)I'm in touch with handfuls of people from school/college, the nice ones. I don't have space for the non nice ones.
I can imagine your mum thought you might not go but kinda hopes you will for a visit even though it's unlikely maybe?
(no subject)
Date: 2019-10-31 10:31 pm (UTC)