Reunion Readiness 101

So I’m headed to my 25th college reunion in April. I can scarcely get those words out without my head spinning. I swear, I sound like a big geezer, but it seems like it was only yesterday that I was having the time of my life…I mean studying and applying myself…at Duke University, my home from 1980-84. I’m not sure if everyone feels as strongly about their college experience, but as anyone who knows me will tell you, I would gladly chuck it all, ditch my kids, husband, even my dog and skipity-doodle in my time machine right back to those glorious days of yore. A time of learning, personal growth, self exploration, blah, blah, blah (that’s for my parents!) but more importantly, a time of excitement and freedom and unrestricted partying that I will never see the likes of (or have the strength to endure) again. The two best by products of my time at Duke are: 1. the fact that I can say I graduated from Duke which often gives me a modicum of respectability; and 2. the finest and most enduring friendships that anyone could ever boast. Women who I would do just about anything for, who provide a support system for each other on a daily basis and who are STILL looking fabulous after all these years. (Just feast your eyes on this picture—you gotta admit, this crew is holding up nicely!)

In the meantime, I’m just now starting to think ahead to April and am wondering how I’d like to present myself. It’s not so much the aforementioned group of girlfriends I’m thinking about—we get together about once a year anyway, so their faces and biographies are pretty familiar. It’s the rest of the once-every-five-year crowd I’m considering. I have to confess, I’m a little vain, so the phrases “weight loss” and “spray tan” intermittently pulsate through my brain, like those unexpectedly fluorescent sea creatures that float up from the darkest ocean depths. I admire my friends who fly in, obviously just being themselves, nary a special manicure or false eyelash to be found. But I’m not quite so cavalier, though I will be working extra hard to give the appearance that I gave no more thought to my outfit than I did to the choice between light or regular cream cheese on my breakfast bagel. So even though it’s January, I’m starting to take some stock, do a little recon and take appropriate action.

Could January be a worse month for self-assessment? Coming off the gluttonous holidays packing an extra 3-5, skin tone a definite Casper on the “Casper-to-George-Hamilton” scale and constantly feeling like the Michelin man in bulky layers of clothing. I swear, the other day, I had a fingernail that needed to be filed—I just rubbed it back and forth against my cheek, such is the texture of my winter-time skin. But the good news, is that most of these issues can be remedied. The bad news is that there’s the T-Rex in the room that no woman wants to acknowledge and can do nothing to prevent—I’m getting old! I have crow’s feet around my eyes! My upper eyelid flap is starting to droop over my lower eyelid! I have to practically apply surgical clamps at my temples in order to apply eyeliner! And that is only possible with a mirror so magnified I can see the hair follicles on the back of my head! I’m looking for signs of a wattle, launching assaults on random, beard-like hairs on my chin and applying Crisco-esque creams under my eyes! Sometimes, I have to step back from my own self-critique and remember that I didn’t age alone while time stood still for the rest of my classmates. No, in those moments, I cheerfully remember that they’ll all be looking like crap too!

Why do we feel this way about reunions? I’ve gone through the same gyrations for high school gatherings as well, but those are not as important to me. I guess I still see my college friends in my mind’s eye as we were back then—young, unencumbered by jobs, families, responsibilities, optimistic, uninhibited and unwrinkled. I cannot shake the context of our coming together all those years ago; it is frozen in time and therefore, so are they. I don’t see them as people who have grown up and moved on; I see them as the same people I knew, with just a blur of time between then and now. I have noticed that we even try to conjure up some of our old behaviors at these reunions, though in slightly less ridiculously embarrassing extremes. But over the last few years, there have been reunions where 30 to 40-year olds sat around tables, played quarters, passed out in closets, got into food fights at restaurants, urinated in public and puked up tequila shots. And that was just the women! (Or so I have heard…!) Perfectly acceptable—expected even!—in this context alone. When we get up bleary-eyed on Sunday morning, catch our separate flights and return to our families and our communities, the moment passes. We are back to our post-graduate personas, and we recloak ourselves in our established traditional roles.

So, while we’re together, I’d like to be part of that illusion that we’re really back at Duke. The one that’s created through the group effort to recount and/or recreate our youthful exploits. It’s getting harder every reunion to pretend we can hold up the same standard, especially for us women. The additional physical maintenance—at least for me--will shortly approximate the story of the little Dutch boy holding his finger in the dyke. Pretty soon, the whole dyke is gonna blow. But for now, I’m still optimistic that I can pull it together. With a little help, the march of time will reverse itself for one weekend and I’ll see the world—and it will see me--through a hazy, melanin-enhanced filter.