Faribault High School Reunion ’23

July 15th, 2023

I had a ridiculously good time with these kids last night.

We had our [loudly coughs]th high school reunion, and reunions are so stupid, which is why I love reunions so much. The further away we get from who we used to be, though, the less stupid reunions get.

You get reminded of that when you count more picture frames on the memorial table than last time. (Seven this year.)

I couldn’t begin to thank every individual for every conversation I had, which featured topics like astrology, psychology, science, religion, reading, writing, music, art, aliens, zoos, foreign languages, bags of dicks, infected cat penises, my dog, your dog, everybody’s dogs, teaching, our kids, their kids, your mom, my mom, his dad, whether I am famous or not (I’m not), whether my dog Marvel is famous (she is), grief, addiction, family drama, elementary school drama, theater drama.

We really covered, like, everything.

I made a half-joke remarking no matter how much we grow and change, when we get around people we’ve known for decades but haven’t seen in-person in years, we regress.

As more time passes, though, it doesn’t feel totally true.

We wrote in each other’s yearbooks “Never change” but that’s not what we meant.

What we meant was: “You have brilliant parts of you I hope you never lose.”

We’ve all been through so much; not a single one of us has stayed the same. There isn’t the thing we were left to regress to.

But to see how many people held on to their brilliant parts after all these years is the kind of life-affirming thing that makes reunions so stupid, and so special.

Shout out to everybody who put this party together, and in a weird way keeps this weird fam together. I hope I see you all again in five years.