Day 8: Ten Years

I didn't make it to my ten year high school reunion this past summer.  Although I actually was in the country visiting, I was on the road between states the day of.  I couldn't decide at the time whether or not I was disappointed.  On one hand, it would have been interesting to see the faces of old friends and chat about the old days at St. Pete High; but on the other, social networking makes those same faces fairly accessible, assuming they've put themselves out to be found, and most people I cared to reconnect with, I had.  But thinking about that stretch of time, of course, brings about lots of old feelings and questions.  Curiosity.  

I wrote this to a boy I used to know.

Hey there.

Ten years – holy crap.  As the decade marker rolls around to invite us all back to revisit the halls we used to know so well, faces from way back when push to the forefront of my mind.  Did the hottest guys all turn out to be gay?  Did the reign of the popular come to a disappointing halt after graduation, or did reality do some humbling?  Did the quiet ones go on to conquer the world?  And what about old friends?  Who kept in touch and who drifted?  Who became exactly what they wanted to be and who disappeared?  And then there’s you – I wonder what became of the boy I loved for a while, the boy who was so many firsts for me.  Infatuation.  Love.  Sex.  Heartbreak.  Kind of sounds like an album.  It’s amazing to me now how my small life then was so affected by only a few months, but it was, and what can you do.  It’s nice to be so far from that old pain, nice that wounds have since scarred over and become nothing but reminders of a past life.  Ten years later, and it feels like the impending reunion that I will miss gives me license to wonder about you without attaching to that curiosity embarrassment for having it.

How are you these days?  Who are you, for that matter?  What have you seen?  What have you done?  How have you changed?  Are you happy or still looking for something?  Did you ever feel sorry for how things fell to pitiful pieces when we knew each other?  Do you ever think of all the things we never said?

I’ve found that I do feel sorry not so much that it ended, but how it did, because it would have been nice to remain in one another’s lives if only to laugh about how stupid we once were.  I envy people who can think of their first love with only fondness because I don’t feel I’m allowed.  Too many things left unexplained, unclarified, unforgiven, and that’s sad, because we could have gotten so much more out of each other.