My mind is going bonkers at the reunion lined up for me.Restless as ever as i look forward to
meeting my friends say after 30 yrs or more and i am at my tethers.
How will they find me after so many years?
Will they be disappointed to know that someone they considered good gave up on her potentials and preferred to be at home for some time and maybe forever?
Will i gel with them now when status, money brings a tantamount change in characters/attitude?
The intellectuals...how should i talk to them or behave in a manner that they shouldn't be embarrassed at my not knowing so many things?
And last but not the least what should i wear?The dress...the shoes...the works.
i ransack my wardrobe and can't decide...for the mellowed down person in me keeps telling me... keep it simple girl...while my friend wants me to look the coolest one.
i am a wreck and no one there really to help me out with this so i turn to my best friend-Myself.Sure i did talk to a couple of friends and some said this some said that but i guess at this juncture i can fully rely on myself.
So i pick up a couple of simple dresses which has minimal style and match it up with an elaborately self embroidered stole because i decide...to hell with everything...i am going to be me...take it or leave it.
Packing over, i wonder how i was unable to attend any of the Alumini meets so far. But this one which is not so much a major reunion but the kind of get-together where i'm told by my friends that quite a few will be there i am excited.
i do have imaginations about the reunions to be fun but my few encounters with friends of yore does leave me with doubts about the supposed fun.To add to my apprehensions is the fact that many i see on the social networking sites seem to have a very rocking and happening life.Mine would not be dubbed happening by those standards but yes i am happy and satisfied with my being.And i wonder that this low profile, self satisfied being, will she be of interest to those who i believe have now branched off to what i see more as networking and not so much as just plain friendship of yesteryears?
Definitely not all will come into that category and some will be so much the same as me but yet i am doubtful about the promised fun with the motley crowd.
i wonder if this meeting would allow us to catch up on the lost years and exchange notes about family.About the ups and down of life and how well we revelled or coped.
i hope everyone is mellowed down enough not to be pretentious and that i could be true and comfortable enough to meet them without any inhibitions and without guards.
All this hoping should not be something which later i have to look back and say,"High Hopes!"
Meanwhile i find this by another anonymous writer comforting as he/she talks about the changing weather of reunions and the simple words that tell it all...the excitement...the apprehensions...the discussions...the changing venues...the attempted pretentions and the failed predictions...and last but not the least of the hopes of attending yet another one.Hopes...again.
The Class Reunion
Every five years, as summertime nears,
An announcement arrives in the mail,
A reunion is planned; it'll be really grand,
Make plans to attend without fail.
I'll never forget the first time we met;
We tried so hard to impress.
We drove fancy cars, smoked big cigars,
And wore our most elegant dress.
It was quite an affair; the whole class was there.
It was held in a fancy hotel.
We wined, and we dined, and we acted refined,
And everyone thought it was swell.
The men all concerned about who had been first,
To achieve great fortune and fame.
Meanwhile, their spouses described their fine houses,
And how beautiful their children became.
The homecoming queen, who had once been lean,
Now weighed in at one ninety six.
The jocks who were there had all lost their hair,
And the cheerleaders could no longer do their kicks.
No one had heard about the class nerd
Who'd guided a spacecraft to the moon;
Or poor little Jane, who's always been plain;
She married a shipping tycoon.
The boy we'd decreed "most apt to succeed"
Was serving ten years in the pen,
While the one voted "least" now was a priest;
Just shows you can be wrong now and then.
They awarded a prize to one of the guys
Who seemed to have aged the least.
Another was given to the grad who had driven
The farthest to attend the feast.
They took a class picture a curious mixture
Of beehives, crew cuts and wide ties.
Tall, short or skinny,the style was the mini;
You never saw so many thighs.
At our next get-together,no one cared whether
They impressed their classmates or not.
The mood was informal, a whole lot more normal,
By this time we'd all gone to pot.
It was held out-of-doors, at the lake shores;
We ate hamburgers,coleslaw, and beans.
Then most of us lay around in the shade,
In our comfortable T-Shirts and jeans.
By the fortieth year, it was abundantly clear,
We were definitely over the hill.
Those who weren't dead had to crawl out of bed
And be home in time for the pill.
And now i can't wait; they've set the table,
Our fiftieth is coming, i'm told.
It should be a ball they've rented a hall
At the Shady Rest House for the old.
Repairs have been made on my hearing aid;
My pacemaker's been turned on high.
My wheelchair is oiled, and my teeth have been boiled;
And I've bought a new wig and glass eye.
I'm feeling quite hearty,and i'm ready to party
I'm gonna dance 'til dawn's early light.
It'll be lots of fun;but i just hope there's one
Other person who can make it that night.
Anonymous
So after reading this i was more comfortable and stable about attending reunions if any although one can never tell.Maybe next time i get a call i'd make plans and keep it on my list because life does give us chances to prioritize and maybe this time i should buckle my shoes and give it a go...but now i am saying this even when i know it's que sera...sera again. Let' see then laters!
One can appreciate the doubts you may be having but don't be too scared to have a go at this.By now as you say you should consider the trivialities of pretentions and boastings to be something not to be taken seriously and to be brushed side with a sporting smile.Maybe much later as the poem beautifully says all guards will be let down and it will be just "plain" friendship and companionship.Happy get-together :)
ReplyDelete@ Anonymous thank you doubly not only for being the first to read mine but to read it well enough to say things that i wanted to hear.It feels so familiar the words that you say.Yeah as you say will go with an open mind.Thank you.
ReplyDeletei guess good friends accept us the way we are and for what we are... do email me if you wish to visit galibore
ReplyDeleteYes!!! It's a bit of a scare when you meet your friends after three decades. But do look forward to it and keep your face straight as everyone there will be doing the same. Here's wishing you a fabulous time. Bring back those days and live through the present with all who were close to you then.
ReplyDeleteHere is another anonymous writer's poem....
It was my class reunion and all through the house,
I checked in each mirror and begged my poor spouse.
To say I looked great, that my chin wasn’t double,
And she lied through false teeth, just to stay out of trouble.
Said that, ‘neath my thick glasses, my eyes hadn’t changed.
And I had the same figure, it was just a mite rearranged.
She said my skin was still silky although looser in drape,
Not so much like smooth satin, but more like silk crepe.
I swallowed her words, hook, sinker and line
And entered the banquet feeling just fine.
Somehow I’d expected my classmates to stay
As young as they were on that long-ago day
When we’d hugged farewell hugs.
But like me, through the years,
They’d added grey to their hair, or pounds to their rears.
But as we shared a few memories and retold some class jokes,
We were eighteen in spirit, though we looked like our folks.
We turned up hearing air volumes and dimmed down the light,
Rolled back the years and were young for the night.
How's that to raise your spirits... Shivani!!
@Lakshmi thank you for reading my post and saying something that sounds so warm.Yes will definitely bug u with more queries when i do have all my plans sorted out.Thank you for that too.:)
ReplyDelete@Tandarin thank you so much for making me see the bright side and my apprehensions are diminished now as i admire this lovely poem and all the efforts you took to share this loveliness with me.But from you can i expect anything less.Thank you indeed!! :)
ReplyDeleteyou are loved shivaani, just the way you are...
ReplyDeletehappy, buubly, non diplomatic i.e. straight forward, thats how I visualise you.
the brilliance of insight and beauty of expression puts all glitter and gold to shame.
Just believe and be yourself...
when is this grand event happening and where, I seemed to have missed on grapevine.
@Sabina thank you sweetie for being so kind but reading what you churn out could i expect any less.But believe not all composers are as true as u and one of my writer/composer friend now feels so phoney that in a way it has dampened all my wonderful thoughts about these reunions.Maybe this should suffice because at best i'd rather not sound like a sulky, gossiping frustrated dame.Maybe laters privately...Thanks for visiting and sensing my apprehensions and encouraging me to be me nothing more and nothing less. :)And this post was written before and was lying in my draft box.Only i posted it today.More about the reunion that wasn't in my next post.Phir se aana meri gali...
ReplyDeleteSomehow it feels so exciting to imagine thye situation, that of meeting teh friends after 30 years or so...Beautifull...SO muc mystery, those long lost memories all would come alive again.
ReplyDelete@Nish thank you for understanding...the excitement...the mystery.Sure the memories come flooding through...of all those pranks...all those who taught us...their idiosyncracies and it feels like yesterday once more.:)
ReplyDeleteShivani dear, don't get so tense about this reunion. Just think of it as a happy get together with friends. You have always been the "happy, bubbly, non diplomatic i.e. straight forward" - rightly quoted by Sabina. Be yourself and go with the flow. Most will be pretentious but the degree of pretence will be different- Ignore it. At the end of the day you'll know who you feel comfortable with and stick with them. Enjoy the get together. Can't wait to hear about it.
ReplyDelete@Preeti thank you dear for your good advice...yeah some i will surely be comfortable with...and i wish you were there :)
ReplyDeleteHope to hear about the meet in a future post.
ReplyDeleteThis reminded me of a school reunion we had planned recently. Some 9 friends were to meet in New York - and finally just 2 turned up :-p. But even then it was wonderful.
@Raja thank you for acknowledging my high hopes and hey the new post is ready...but...
ReplyDeleteWow .... We have a reunion planned for next year. And I am already worried.The poetry is so apt. I think a lot of that comes from peer comparison. And then some of us grow out of it. I remember during our college farewell only one guy out of the whole batch had managed to get a job. Everyone else was still working on theirs. There was a sad undercurrent. I hope the reunion goes amazing for you. If you have written a post about it, will get to it. Working my way up from the older posts.
ReplyDelete@Le embrouille thank you so much for visiting my blog. Yeah i guess any reunion after all these years does leave you a bit anxious.Hope yours turns out gr8 and believe me by next year it should look every bit as the poem says.Each year diminishes egoes by degrees and finally it turns out to be just what it should be.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile i am just happy to know more like minded folks like you :)
we become brave enough to accept the change in people with experience.u become a strong person.
ReplyDelete@Gauri thank you wise girl...the point is i was hoping for some changes in my friend who i thought is going through hell.But hell is what she has become.On my part now she will only be in my prayers because i know that i have always loved her even in school although i was innocent to realise then that she needed me only for the facilities that came along with me.
ReplyDeleteNow i realise and yes as u say i have become strong enough to deal with what i call 'opportunists' and not friends.
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