It’s a half-anticipated, half-dreaded event: the 20-year high school reunion. This gathering of old friends (and enemies) has become a benchmark in our culture: The Great Check-In on how your life is going up to this point. Who better to assess the success or failure of your last two decades than people you haven’t seen in that long, right?

Even knowing how silly that is, I couldn’t help but be a little nervous about it. Getting ready for the reunion, I found myself comparing the current me to the potential me of 20 years ago: thinking how much has happened, how far I have come, and where I hope my life is headed. It’s hard not to notice on an occasion like this where you’ve come up short, too. All those everyday insecurities are filtered through the weird lens of the distant past.

Twenty years ago, our class was the first one to graduate from a new high school we had the choice to attend. Ours had 210 or so members, while the class behind us (who did not have the option to stay at their old high schools) was well over 600. The fact that as rising juniors we chose to leave our old schools and help establish a new one made our high school experience… special. The teachers were psyched to be in a new place, and so were most of us. Certainly, this did not iron out all the normal problems of high school: cliques, drugs, etc.  I think it intensified the nature of our relationships — good and bad — because there were few places to hide. We had no senior class our first year and, though I know there are schools all over the country graduating classes of fewer than 200 or even 100, for us this was a huge paradigm shift. Friendships, rivalries, and striving for various forms of success were all intensified under a microscope of newness and expectations.

I know this will come as a tremendous shock to all of you: but as an overweight, spazzy, redheaded bookworm with acne and high SAT scores, I did not run with the popular crowd in high school. Go ahead, pick yourself up off the floor and absorb. It’s true. I worked at least 20 hours a week at McDonald’s and was the editor of a non-existent school newspaper. I was possibly the worst member of the Varsity softball team, even though I was one of the oldest girls on it. I had a nasty habit of saying out loud whatever came into my head, which is inadvisable at any age. (Come to think of it, that part hasn’t really changed much. Sigh.) Struggling to fit in, I did a lot of things I’m proud of, and a few things that I’m not at all. In fact, I look back on some of the things I did to get attention in high school and just cringe.

Despite all of it, I’m lucky that I emerged from that experience with a solid group of at least 20 close friends. People who looked past my flaws and loved me anyway. People I have stayed in touch with, and would have done even without Facebook, etc. Many of my important life events have been, at least partly, high school reunions. Maybe that’s why I had never attended an official reunion before this one. I felt I was already in touch with the people I cared most about, and not enough time had passed to make me curious about the others. I’m really glad I changed my tune this year.

I don’t know the final numbers, but it seemed to me that nearly half our class turned out for the party Saturday, which was held at a bar/restaurant, and a smattering for the football game Friday night. If the old rivalries were there, or if people were trying too hard to show off how wonderful their lives were, I didn’t see it. I found myself chatting easily with people I was either intimidated or plagued by in high school, and realizing that while our lives have all taken different trajectories, we have more in common than not.

In twenty years, some people have moved around and returned, some are still scattered across the country/around the world, and a few have never left the area where we grew up. We have all had some triumphs: graduate degrees, beautiful children, happy marriages; and maybe some stuff we’re not so thrilled about, too. Each of us has had our hearts broken at one time or another. For some of us it was a divorce or the loss of one or both parents, or even a child. Family drama, career setbacks and health issues have kept many (most?) of us from being exactly who we thought we’d be when we graduated. Other things have been pleasant surprises.

Once we were all together, however, the details didn’t seem to matter much. We chatted, and maybe shared some of the ups and downs of the past two decades; but from everything I saw/experienced/overheard, there was very little judgment being passed around. No one seemed to be there to try to show up or outdo anyone else, and if people were gossiping I didn’t hear that either. What I did see was old friends drinking, dancing and laughing. While people did seem to cluster in their old groups a little bit (myself included), the groups intermingled well and most everyone I talked to was unabashed and friendly. In other words, nothing like the high school cafeteria.

It’s too bad high school itself can’t be like that.  I guess that’s all part of growing up — to some extent, we form our identities by pushing against other people. Plus, being accepting of others means first learning to be comfortable with yourself; for many of us that takes a loooong time. Okay, it’s still a work in progress for me, but I’m glad this weekend was more fun than I’d imagined it could be.

Looking forward to the 25th!

MJ Pullen

M.J. Pullen is a distracted writer and the mom of two boys in Roswell, Georgia, where she is absolutely late for something important right now. Her books include quirky romantic comedies and playful women's fiction. She blogs erratically with writing advice, random observations, and reflections on raising very loud kids and dogs. Join her Distracted Readers newsletter list for updates, free content, giveaways and more.