How To Examine The Past Without Getting Stuck – Class Reunions

“The Past Forever Gone – The Future Still Our Own” – Plainville High School Class of ’71 Motto

I attended the 45th reunion of the Plainville High School, class of ’71 just ten years ago – examine the past.  It was four days of clean air, green landscapes, and a serious overload of memories.  Good memories.  Seriously, all good.  At least now they are.

 We all know that growing up is hard work.  Hard work for parents and hard work for the one doing the growing.  If it were not so natural or the alternative so, well, final, no one would do it.  There is drama, trauma, and unknown stuff all around every day.

When one is as blessed as I was, this is set among a loving, safe, happy, and secure family who knows how much to let go while being there for the falls.  Looking back, I know I was blessed to be raised in the location and family I was.  The school I attended was a big part of all of that experience.

There were sixty-three in our graduating senior class, and although I have not actually counted, at least half were in my kindergarten class.  That’s right, I attended public school for 13 years with the same core group of classmates.  That includes most of those who have passed on.

I was the youngest in the class, all thirteen years, which was challenging for me socially but about right academically.  Ours was and is a good group of people.

The excellent teachers with their varied methods, were affectionately discussed at the reunion.  Some were strict, even “mean”, some temperamental, others kind, yet challenging.  We respected them all.  The senior boys were especially respectful of a couple of the younger female teachers with great legs!

For the most part, we got along, and although there were groups of friends, there were no serious clicks, at least not that I remember.  I attribute that to the example of our elected class leaders and sponsors.

Oh, of course, we gossiped, had our moments of drama and even a bully or two, but the values of the day seemed to keep things civil and within a certain set of boundaries. Even though tested regularly, but found to be sturdy yet flexible.

The two evenings with my classmates were full of catching up and smiles.  There was a memorial for those who had passed on.  I was surprised at the tears that welled when I viewed the remembrance table.  I had heard about each when they died, but seeing the group all together was sobering.  Examine the past can provide solace.

We told stories about ourselves all in good fun.  The odd thing is that I always felt like an outsider.  In some ways, I still do.  It is not a rational feeling and has no basis in fact, but rather in insecurities that shadowed me into my early 20s.

I went through a transforming season at that time.  An encounter with Jesus Christ as I had never known.  I was a Christian, born again at a young age, thanks to the Methodist Church we attended and the influence of the Rev. Billy Graham.  I was in church my entire life, but was dogged by insecurity, a form of fear.  I didn’t even know it was there; it just was.

Once I saw that this was not really me, I let it go and was free never to go back.  It was an exercise in seeing myself as God sees me and in forgiveness. Now, when I visit the places of my childhood, I may remember those feelings, but I know they are not me.  Never was, I did not understand that at the time.

So now, even though I remember the feeling of being an outsider, I know I was and am not. I admire the lives of those I went to school with.  Many have made a life not far from my hometown, some have left and returned.  Others, like myself, made a life elsewhere yet remain attached to this location, if for nothing else, as the place they went to school.

Our class motto: “The Past Forever Gone – The Future Still Our Own” continues to ring true.  What a great way to live. Letting go of youthful trauma, drama, skinned knees, and wounded feelings, of failures, disappointments, and even injustices, and looking to what lies ahead.  Even after 45 years, the class of 1971 is still moving forward.  Bravo.