Loan Le

I honestly didn’t expect the response to my previous post about my high school reunion. People I haven’t talked to in ages had sent me messages saying they enjoyed my post and appreciated my manic candor. I’m guessing a lot of things I had said resonated with those who dreaded the idea of their past and present colliding at Aunt Chilada’s. I felt obligated to satisfy my readers (count: 2) with a follow-up post.

Before heading to the high school reunion, I had a smaller one with old friends, and we all crammed into the back of my Highlander, legs bent, knees to our chests as we faced each other (quite uncomfortable for KP who’s like 6’2″), and just talked about our lives—random things about significant others, roommate horror stories, pelvic organ prolapse, etc. People driving by, their headlights illuminating our silhouettes, might have wondered about what was going on inside the Highlander. I remember thinking that even if everything sucked that night, at least I’d remember this moment when us gals (minus one) were together again.

But it came to that time, yes that time, to make moves toward our reunion. We all knew it. Adele sang Hello on the drive there, which was so appropriate of course, but despite Adele’s well-timed accompaniment, I still felt excited after spending time with the vag squad.

So, I walked into Aunt Chilada’s feeling like this:

Only a few more steps into the restaurant moved to commence my discomfort. I had an odd flashback to one of my high school homecomings, where our adolescent, hormone-infested hormonal bodies were hypnotized by Miley Cyrus’ masterful lyrics in a song called, “Party in the USA.” Somehow kids managed to grind to it. I just remembered thinking, The fuck? Out of all my thoughts, this phrase perhaps occupied 95 percent of my thoughts throughout my high school career.

Then the flashback went away, because no one was grinding yet!

A note to readers (count: 5, now?): I was stone-cold sober the whole night because I don’t drink. If anyone ever harbored ill will towards me and wanted to render me comatose, pour me the tiniest bit of alcohol and I’d be out. (Please, don’t.)

I found myself fading out, forgetting about the music, and focusing all on sight. This tends to happen when I’m overwhelmed (and I’ve been told that my face goes slack and I go into a trance). This has also led to many awkward encounters when someone thinks I’m staring at them, when it’s most likely that I’m just thinking about what to eat next.

I spied two high school classmates dancing rather closely. I saw the same pair later on in the night, when they shared a kiss and went their separate ways. The girl was staring brokenheartedly after his retreating back. Perhaps she had fulfilled a long-time wish to make a move on the boy she liked. Good for her. But if she expected anything more from this encounter, I’d say the joke was on her.

Oh, the heartbreak in high school, those that you had witnessed—and experienced. I promised that I wouldn’t let my eyes drift too much, but they did and landed on a few boys whom I wish I had been brave enough to get to know.  I was disappointed that they were for the most part still handsome and mostly definitely unaware of my existence, and will never be.

Other classmates had ballooned. Some lost weight, was going bald, or dyed their hair. Names and question marks appeared in my mind’s eye as I tried to remember who was who, ineluctably mistaking one person for another person, who was most likely their best friend. Before and after pictures floated in my mind as well, snapshots of the past overlaying what was right in front of me.

There were many who seemed to use alcohol to mask their discomfort in this situation, not totally bad . . . . well, until the alcohol led to ridiculousness, and it became obvious people were laughing at them, not with them.

I was watching all this, because I couldn’t bring myself to hold any legitimate conversation, despite what I had said in my previous post. See, I’ve always been wary of social gatherings, noisy and quiet, but I despise raucous ones even more. Usually, the music serves to mask the tremble of your voice, which reveals your nervousness, yet also drowns out the ability to hear fucking anything. I found myself shouting—more like spitting–in people’s ears most of the time, then nodding, dumbly, whenever I saw their lips moving in return.

What are you doing?

Publishing.

Sorry, what?

PUBLISHING!@@**!

Not cool, to be honest. I genuinely did want to have longer conversations with really cool people who were slaying bitches in life, but I couldn’t muster the effort because of this noise. Again, missed opportunity.

I felt inexplicably angry at some points. Surges, I call them, in which a laugh, a glimpse of a classmate, or a small gesture brought back an unpleasant memory, and I couldn’t quite decipher it because it’d disappear too quickly.

I had hoped to see some faces and prayed to Satan that I wouldn’t see others. Not to say that I disliked the list of 28 people that I mentioned to Satan . . . it was more of me thinking and worrying about what I could possibly say to them. However, I caught eyes with these people. Quick glances: they are fucking painful. I mean the ones where you accidentally meet eyes with someone else, then you look away, knowing that this person saw you glancing away, and all you’re thinking is Shit. Shit. Shit. Your pain is only relieved when that person doesn’t approach you. But then there are certain people who think Ah, fuck, we saw each other, might as well torture her with forced conversation, and they stalk toward you, and you’re just scrambling for interesting things to say when you know you don’t have anything to say.

At one point I had retreated to a table with my friends. I put my back against the crowd, thinking, Fuck this sucks. I focused on my girlfriends sitting across from me, and I could see them staring out into the crowd, almost looking like they regretted coming here. As if, their faces were saying, why did I ever think that things would be different? It made me sad to watch, because I knew I was feeling the same thing. Then, someone made a bet, someone said, I kind of want to dance. EChow, I think it was, her shaved side hair emblematic of her rebellion, whether she intended it to be just that or not, led the line to the crowded dance floor. We danced stiffly side to side. I was thinking, Oh boy. And then, eventually, the night went away as our movements became more bold and crazy, and we focused solely on the fact that all of us were here together, again. When dancing with friends, I inexplicably end up in the circle. Perhaps because I’m shorter, perhaps because I gravitate to this area not out of ego, but out of comfort, knowing that I’d be surrounding myself with the people I love.

I kind of hoped we would look like this as we were dancing:

…though, that wasn’t the case. Anyways, who cares? Let’s say it again, WHO CARES?!?

A beautiful thing happened. I’m gonna quote the greatest wordsmith of the quintessential teenage experience: Stephen Chbosky. In that moment, I swear we were infinite.  I felt infinite. I felt infinite in the sense that I was there, in that moment, with the people who were and will always be dear to me. And that, I suppose, is the takeaway of a reunion:

Remember the good.  Fuck the bad.

(Some might say I’m trying to make something more than it is–it’s a reunion nothing more. But I’ve always been sentimental and shit.)

Taking pleasure in just existing, I felt more and more thankful of my experiences as the night progressed. And it seemed, by the noise and the number of bodies flooding the dance floor, that this was the case for my classmates. The music, however corny, served to unite us. People belted out “Forever Young” and “Bohemian Rhapsody.” An alligator hat was passed around, for some strange reason. Someone placed a wooden chair in the middle of the floor—not sure it’d survived the night.

One moment stuck out to me: I had a friend in high school and we drifted apart for no big reason. Our eyes met from across the room, my friend pointed a finger—a yes, you gesture—and then suddenly we were embracing each other. With this brief touch, I tried my best to convey how happy I hoped this person was, how awesome they were and will continue to be. After that, we parted, never exchanging a word, and I was left feeling content.

The reunion ended at around 1 a.m., and the crowd definitely shrunk seventy-five percent. The lights became brighter, and I was able to see who exactly was there—and I looked away. I didn’t want to stare any longer, so with my girls, we headed out to paint the town fucking red.

Just kidding. Nothing’s open in Cheshire after 10 p.m. NOT EVEN MCDONALD’S!

We will all move on from this high school reunion—we have already. We will continue to take on the world, continue to find ourselves, continue to forge confidence in whatever we may do. My promise is to hold on tight to what matters and let the insignificant go.

For those of you from my past who are reading this post, I wish you well, and I hope you’ve gained only positive feelings from our high school reunion! Good luck to you, Class of 2010. T-What? Okay, I’ll stop now.