Factors to Consider When Deciding Whether to Attend Your High School Reunion
Our lives are continually influenced by a series of transitions marked by engaging in reflection, making resolutions and setting or re-setting goals. With a world characterized by considerable turmoil, turbulence and conflict, a review and possible realignment of personal and professional priorities is inevitable.
Transitions happen throughout the year, and can often be identified by the degree to which they act as a catalyst for self examination. Transitions typically prompt a review of our capabilities, talents and strengths, a consideration of our weaknesses, an acknowledgement of our mistakes or regrets, or a rekindling of our fears.
One of the most popular and least examined transitions in North America is the high school reunion. It qualifies as a transition because it typically prompts self-examination and brings us to view our current self in contrast to who we were in the past. Sociologist Vered Vinitzky-Seroussi (1998) described the high school reunion as an “autobiographical occasion which prompts us to examine our own life narratives, the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how we have come to be that person.”
The high school reunion is probably the most common post-high school activity that binds together virtually all high school graduates in North America. Ralph Keyes (1976), in his book, Is There Life After High School? noted that the high school reunion may be “the most tribal experience (a North American) will ever have.”
Biographical Confrontation.
Meeting years later with those who knew us in high school can be experienced as scary, nerve-racking, and challenging. The reunion has the potential to rekindle all the anxieties, fears, worries and struggles that characterized that period in our lives. It can also be experienced as an opportunity to reconnect with a community of people we loved, cherished, and valued. Even those who choose not to attend the reunion may be forced into what Vinitzky-Seroussi called a “biographical confrontation, the unavoidable and often pivotal engagement between a carefully constructed personal identity and the socially prevalent standards of success and accomplishment.”
The reunion is a unique opportunity to engage in an autobiographical journey. Unlike a job interview or social occasion where a person might be asked to “tell something about yourself,” the reunion propels us to engage in a more complicated life review. It is an opportunity to make sense out of or examine the relationship between our social and personal past and our social and personal present. The reunion drives us to construct a coherent biography of self and engage in narrative story telling. To prepare for a reunion requires, perhaps subconsciously, attention to questions such as ‘What have I done with my life? Who have I become? Have I fulfilled my life role? How have I reconciled my inner feelings and outer appearance?’
I had an opportunity to experience this transition close-up when I attended the 50th reunion of my high school class.
While I was curious about what had become of my classmates over that 50 year span, I was also prompted to think about how I had changed. How had my identity evolved over the years? And what role did my experience of high school play in my subsequent development? Answers to these questions were not readily forthcoming. My memories of high school were a distant blur with only vague recollections. My strongest sense memories were of friends, not the sports we played, not the dances we went to, not the classes we attended, and not the trouble we caused, but what we were to each other. Could this be what my identity was about 50 years ago?
Many of the observations and experiences I had at the reunion had implications for the professional areas within which I work: peer assistance, mentoring and coaching. Interactions I had with my classmates both before and after the reunion event helped to validate some of these findings. I hope that these observations and experiences will have value both personally and professionally for anyone considering whether to attend a high school reunion.
The Power of Reflection
People attended the reunion for a variety of reasons. Many classmates who had regularly attended previous reunions did so because they enjoyed connecting again with others, and learning about the life progress of their chums. They liked the idea of being accountable to their classmates and being supportive of the progress of their friends. Other classmates appeared eager to share their life stories and gain recognition and affirmation from their peers.
Less frequent reunion attenders were mostly curious about what had happened to others and whether Karma or justice had finally come to roost on a classmate who treated them badly. One classmate, for example, seemed pleased to know that a another classmate that gave her grief in high school was now shorter and more pear-shaped or had a life of underachievement.
For some, attendance at the reunion was more about transcendence. Finding closure or soliciting an apology for long-ago wounds was not uncommon. A few classmates used the reunion to share a hidden hurt or harm or even a joy and thrill from a long ago interaction with the classmate who was perceived as the source. The reaction of the source classmate seemed less important than being able to finally and directly express some long-held feeling. Forgiveness in some cases was also shared.
Several people who attended said that during the reunion they reverted to behaviour that they thought had ended with high school. This was a disturbing revelation for those who experienced this insight. They had hoped that their life progress had helped them overcome a rerun of behaviour they had outgrown. Reunion attendance brought to the surface issues that had not been adequately resolved. One person, for example, who had gained considerable recognition and achievement in his professional life found himself reserved and almost uncommunicative when interacting with a girl he had dated in high school; a way of interacting, he said, that was completely uncharacteristic of his current relationships.
One of the surprises for me came from seeing who had attended the current reunion or reunions of the past and comparing that to a printed list of those classmates no one could locate or who had never attended a reunion. Until this fiftieth reunion, the first I had attended, I had been on that list. And all of my closest high school friends were still on that list.
This comparison led me to think about what we had in common. The characteristic that stood out the most was our social orientation and our ability to relate successfully with the ethnic and racial groups in our school. But wouldn’t that mean we’d be more likely, not less likely, to attend a reunion?
When I returned home after the reunion I sent an email to one of my friends (JL — not his actual initials) from high school who was not lost to me but was on the reunion “lost classmates” list, and shared my puzzlement about the discrepancy. After he laughed at my question and extracted from me a pledge that I would not provide his contact details to the reunion committee, JL shared his reflection on this situation.
Living in the Present
JL had considered attending the reunion in the past, but decided against it because being in, thinking about, or reflecting on high school was not part of what gives his life meaning today. JL recalled high school, as I did, with a sense of vague happiness. But the point that he made that struck a chord with me was when he said that he recalled high school as a time when he had a fluid identity. JL saw himself as a chameleon; a person with an ability to almost immediately take on the salient characteristics of the people around him. He was just as at ease in a discussion with the school principal as he was in talking to his peers. In addition, during high school he had no deep interest in his future and only selected study areas or activities based on the expectations of others or a sense of daring or experimentation. He felt as we both did then that he lived in the here and now; cared little about what had gone before, and what was going to come.
I asked JL to what degree that perspective had been carried over into his adult life and work. He said that living in the moment is his primary way of being in the world and that his identity has formed around what provides meaning for him today. He was grateful for the opportunity to have had time for a fluid identity and not being compelled to be a particular person. He also said that his personal, family, and professional life today are filled with people from various cultures, and that he was convinced that “hanging out” in high school with other “chameleons” like himself (and me) helped him to gain his own voice and purposeful direction later in life.
My friend’s comments reinforced what concerned me most about attending the reunion. I wasn’t interested in spending time talking about my past accomplishments and personal history. I dreaded hearing questions about what I’ve been doing since high school. And I really didn’t want to learn about what my classmates had done with their lives. I cared about them and wanted to be respectful, but I was more interested in who they were now, what they currently yearn for, what keeps them awake at night, what propels them to get out of bed in the morning, and what keeps the light burning inside them. What I wanted to know was more like what Canadian poet and writer Oriah Mountain Dreamer said in the beginning of her poem “The Invitation”
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing…
The Power of Mentors
Not surprisingly my former high school classmate, JL, had no interest in contacting any of our friends who were on the lost list to find out if they shared a similar perspective. However, he did let me know that he had only one regret. Much to my astonishment what he mentioned was identical to the single regret I had about my time in high school and one that some other classmates indicated that they shared.
The regret that we had in common was that we wished we had been better friends to each other during our high school days. Being a “better friend” for the most part meant being more understanding, compassionate and accepting, as well as supporting friends to deal with their own life issues. Classmates remarked that conversations with peers in earlier reunions often resulted in revelations about a variety of hidden problems or secret traumas during high school. Classmates revealed that such difficulties often persisted or worsened through adulthood.
Some reunion participants could recall such trauma in their high school life yet seemed to be less agitated by the memory. For the most part they attributed their ability to manage their difficulty by connecting with a peer or adult that cared enough about them at the time to listen closely and help them find a better resolution than they could find on their own.
Several classmates named teachers or peers who took a special interest in them, provided extra time for conversation, acted as an advocate, or led a small extra-curricular group of some kind. Some teachers and peers were named as key figures in helping them transcend life issues. Help was often indirect — — specific discussion of a troubling area may have never occurred — — but the positive attention, as Scales and Leffert (2004) have also noted, helped classmates feel a sense of worthiness, encouragement and support, all of which contributed to their resilience in dealing with their life issues.
The Myth of Life Planning
I was grateful for these comments from classmates about the power of mentors and their desire to have been a better friend. A major part of my professional work has been dedicated to making this become a reality for youth through peer assistance and mentoring. Yet up until this 50th reunion I was not really aware that the origin of my pursuit had a foundation in my experience in high school.
The vague connection between high school and later life was echoed by many of my classmates. One of the surprising outcomes from conversations with classmates were their answers to the question: How would you describe the connection between your high school plans for work or future career and what you then spent most of your life doing? With few exceptions almost all the classmates at the reunion indicated that they never could have predicted or expected that they would have engaged in what turned out to be their life career. While almost all classmates had by now reached the retirement phase from their active work life, it was stunning to learn how few had planned to do what they spent most of their lives doing.
Many classmates talked about their career journey as one of transcending the expectations of others and finding the path that gave them their own voice, resulted in a sense of fulfillment, or gave their life meaning. While they didn’t necessarily wish that such transcendence had taken place during high school, they decried the lack of opportunity for such exploration at an earlier age. But they were just as adamant about the value of the journey and what they gained from not following the straight line emphasized in high school.
Their comments reinforced my own experience. During high school I came into contact with a kernel of something, a wisp of a dream that would become a life theme for my work. My future, though, wasn’t particularly predicted by the tradition of quality courses and capable teachers; it was foretold in the social relationships and life interactions. Rather than helping me to fully explore my life experience and dreams, the high school curriculum channeled me into a path that matched my test scores, academic achievement, and surface understanding of what I wanted to be in later life.
Too many of us have submerged our dreams for ourselves or had them squashed or minimized. The need to provide opportunities for dream exploration is a theme in my book on peer career mentoring (Carr, 2009). My discussions with classmates at the reunion reinforces the contradictions in traditional approaches to life planning and career coaching. Even the career advice of “find something you’re good at” is often inadequate as a way to identify a life direction.
Using the Reunion Metaphor
In our peer, mentor and coaching relationships it might be valuable to use preparing for a “high school reunion” as a prompt to assist those we are working with to conduct a life review. Asking a client or partner questions such as “If you were preparing to attend your high school reunion, what would you want your classmates to notice most about you?” “What might be the most important aspects of your life you’d want to communicate to your former classmates?” “What would you consider to be the greatest changes you’ve made in yourself since high school?”
Coaching, peer assistance (Carr, 2012), and mentoring (Carr, 2017) are all ways to more fully explore the sparks inside us that are responsible for lighting the fire. The journey may be filled with twisting and unstable pathways. Troubling or difficult encounters along the way may all be necessary to prevent the sparks from going out. By truly listening to the stories of others, and sharing how we experience life and what we are gaining from the journey, will help us to ignite the flame within ourselves and within our classmates.
References
Carr, R. (2009). Peer career coaching: Engaging young people to find their assets and live their dreams. Victoria, BC: Peer Systems Consulting Group, Inc. (Amazon)
Carr, R. (2012). The Theory and Practice of Peer Mentoring in Schools. Victoria, BC: Peer Systems Consulting Group, Inc. (Amazon)
Carr, R. (2017). Shaping the Future: 150+ Canadian Mentoring Relationships that Make Canada Great, Creative, Innovative, Productive, Successful and Welcoming. Victoria, BC: Peer Systems Consulting Group, Inc. (Amazon)
Keyes, R. (1976). Is there life after high school? London: Little, Brown. (Amazon)
Mountain Dreamer, O. (1999). The invitation. San Francisco: Harper. (A copy of this poem is available at www.oriahmountaindreamer.com/)
Scales, P.C. and Leffert, N. (2004). Developmental assets: A synthesis of the scientific research on adolescent development (Second Ed.). Minneapolis, MN: Search Institute. (Amazon)
Vinitzky-Seroussi, V. (1998). After pomp and circumstance: High school reunion as an autobiographical occasion. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. (Amazon)