Connecting With The Past Is Cathartic

While we tend to show up at a high school class reunion to see people

, that reunion is as much about connecting with our own past as it is about anything else; as a result, one of the more interesting features of reunions is the way that the dynamic changes as the attendees grow older. Maturity plays a role in that change, of course, by it is also driven by the way that our relationship with our high school experience changes as we grow older.

High school represents one of the most internally chaotic periods of our lives. We struggle with severe, sometimes paralyzing insecurities as we begin to emerge as unique individuals. We go through significant physical changes, with all the awkwardness and acne and hormonal rages that go with them. We struggle against the authorities that have defined our lives up to that point as we stake out our own territory, liberty, and personal space.

At a deep level our high school years represent a period of trauma in our lives because of all the struggle, strain, and stress. During that time we tend to forge extremely strong bonds with our close friends, but we also create a bond with all of our peers, simply because we are all going through the same difficult period together. We have an innate kinship, and we are features of each other's journeys.

The reason we have reunions is to honor that bond. But in an important way the bond we have with our classmates isn't about our relationship with them; it's about our relationship with our emerging selves. And although we connect with the people we went to school with at our reunions, our urge to attend is largely driven by our urge to connect with our own past in order to understand it.

Our relationship with that period in our lives changes as we get older, and in subtle ways that drives changes in the way we think of and relate to the people we attended school with. Sometimes we aren't cognizant of exactly how those relationships change because we don't think of them in terms of an evolution of our own identities. However, in many important ways even our closest high school friendships are metaphors for our relationship with ourselves.

The first decade of our adult lives is very much about the first stages of building a life, and so by the time we attend our 10-year reunion we probably haven't done much reflection or gained much perspective. The 10-year reunion tends to be an energetic party because it is an extension of our high school experience, and it's the only way that we know how to reconnect with that experience and the people who feature in it.

Later in life we go through less external change and more internal change. The internal change that occurs as we progress down our chosen path, encountering obstacles that we overcome or are overcome by, establishing our own families, and so on, changes our perspective on our youth. Although we spend our 20s running from it, we spend our forties wishing we had it back; and as we value our youth more we value the people who populated that time in our lives more as well.

At 10 or 20 or 40 or 60 years we may show up to the high school class reunion to see people we've known for most of our lives. But connecting with those people is a means to an end. It's a way to connect with ourselves and our past and by connecting to understand ourselves better.

by: Andy Craft

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