There comes a time when you sit back and wonder “I wonder how much I’ve actually changed since high school”. Maybe not, maybe you just wonder how much other people have. You’re thankful to have a few good friends you’ve kept since then, happy that there are people in the world you can’t get tired of, even if no one else remembers them. (I heart you, forgotten one.) You learn valuable lessons at reunions. Ok, not really valuable lessons. However, you definitely learn some very interesting things.

1. It’s always funny to see them fall from grace. The most important lesson you learn is that you want to see those cocky or stuck up people fail in life. It’s human nature. You want to see that girl who was the prettiest and snobbiest in your class suddenly gain a 100 lbs. and work as a waitress at some dive. That popular football player that was hot stuff in school? You want to see them overweight and unsuccessful. Unfortunately, sometimes this isn’t the case. Fortunately, most of the time it is and you spend the entire reunion laughing. Yes, I was sober and laughing.
2. You can leave the drama at home, but the drama can sometimes follow you. This is a sketchy one. In our Facebook group for the reunion, someone basically said “Leave the drama home at home because no one wants it”. The first thing I thought of was “if you still hold a grudge from high school at this point, you’ve got more problems to deal with”. Admittedly, this fact really gets tested when say.. I don’t know.. someone gets so wasted they use your boobs as punching bags while muttering nonsense. Then it occurs to you there are only a few options when this happens: you could a) smile and nod and hope it stops; b) push one of your best friends in between; c) walk away; d) punch offending person in the face and talk about how it was worth it while getting tossed out by security. I recommend every option but the last, it’s generally not worth  it and jail time isn’t cool anymore.
3. Cliques are cliques are cliques. Remember everyone who hung out with each other in high school? So do they. As if high school really just picks up after 10 years, you look around noting that the same people are hanging out with each other in various parts of the bar. You have those two girls that never spoke to anyone because they were too pretty to be bothered with those who are beneath them. Those two guys that were star jocks that are still way to amazing to be bothered with everyone else unless they are being admired. The popular kids still hung out only with each other. Don’t worry though, while you make that observation you realize that you’re sitting with people you only saw a week ago and never lost contact with instead of catching up with people you barely associated with anyways. Apparently if you never cared to bother 10 years ago, there’s really no point now. And don’t judge, you’re just as guilty and you shouldn’t feel bad. There’s a reason for all of it.

Aside from realizing you said goodbye you being young and stupid 10 years ago and you feel old as a result, you have nothing to be afraid of from hitting this milestone. You’re older and thankfully wiser than you once were. (In said scenario earlier, my short-tempered self would definitely had snapped and assaulted the person like a bear being poked.) Now you can take a deep breath and face those scary 30’s because you just saw 50 other people who also used to be young with you becoming older too and sometimes not nearly as gracefully as you are. I admit that my post-pregnancy body scared me going into the reunion because I didn’t want to be a chubby version of me that gets mocked because I was a twiggy teen. But when you see people balding or much chubbier than you are for a reason not as good as yours, you feel so much better. I sure did and I’m ashamed to admit that this fact doesn’t shame me.