Saturday night saw me attending my (junior) high school reunion. Our class sizes were so small (between 12 and 15), in that tiny country town, that we melded four ‘graduating’ years (Year Ten of 1983, 1984, 1985, 1986) to get a decent amount of people together. One class below me and two above.
In the main, I hated school. I was bullied mercilessly for nine years by the kids (not so much when I was in the final year, as there was no one older than me and I could take care of myself by then, anyway) and given short shrift by most of the teachers. I was hounded all the way there and home again on the school bus. So why did I go?
Partly I went because I had kept in touch with a few people over the years, and I wanted to catch up with them. Partly I went out of curiosity to see how those I haven’t laid eyes on for the best part of thirty years have turned out. Partly I went to slay some demons- kind of standing up to the crowd in my own head, seeing that they weren’t those same dumb kids anymore and that we had all moved on. Letting go, or something, I don’t know, of the past, and making new memories. Putting that chapter to bed. Partly I went to say “Look at me, I turned out ok and you didn’t break me.”
What I wasn’t expecting was that one of the girls who was my friend (when I was in yr 9 and she in yr 10) and had pretty much ripped out my heart by dropping me like a stone over I have no idea what, but making me feel like an utter piece of shit and that I could never trust anyone again, would actually come up to me and apologise. Say what she had done was wrong, that she thought about it all the time, felt terribly guilty and hated herself for being weak and not standing up for me against the other kids when she could see what was going on. How she betrayed my trust and couldn’t live with herself over it. She gave me a present, and a CD with that song about the girl saying sorry to the boy she knew in school. Wow.
I was really blown away by it, and it meant SO much, that even one person cared to say the truth about what had happened to me for all those years. To speak it would have been enough. But to admit she was complicit and she regretted it and would give anything to take it back- I think that was the biggest gift I have received in a very long time, and if nothing else, it was worth going just for that.
We met at the local town pub, from six until midnight. All twenty-something of us. The year below me had buried a ‘time capsule’ at the school in 1986, which had been found and dug up. It had a couple of newspapers, magazines, a mix pop-music cassette (which of course no one could even play!) and a profile of each of the students in that year: hopes and dreams and fears and that sort of thing. It was hilarious. The beer was bad, the chips were cold. I drank soda water all night ($3 a glass- what a rip off!) as I was driving home on the narrow, winding, kangaroo-ridden road (at 70km/hr, which took me about 45mins!) and went hungry.
I chatted with heaps of people superficially, and few a bit more in-depth. I had a lot of laughs, a bit of a dance to dreadful music, and thoroughly enjoyed myself. I wished I’d spoken to more people than I had. Only a couple of people asked me if I had kids, and when I said no, nobody talked to me about theirs. Almost nobody mentioned (if they knew) that I was married to one of the ‘local’ doctors and those who did, didn’t bang on about it and make me feel like a tool. (You know, the ‘oh I bet you don’t have to work a day in your life and everything’s perfect, must-be-nice etc’ kind of stuff). One guy told me how he’d always thought we’d get married when we grew up, and that I was the hottest person there tonight. I fell about laughing.
They seemed like a bunch of normal, ok people, and nothing like the ogres I’d built them into over the years.
I’m so glad I went.
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