Preparing for a High School Reunion

I leave Friday for my 46th high school reunion. I ask you: how is this possible if I'm only 35? 

Kansas

I grew up in Stafford, where my mother had grown up before me.

(Actually I'm not sure either one of us ever grew up, but that's for another post.)

The other water tower was in our backyard.

I've come back less and less often to this tiny town in the Kansas wheat fields. A lot has changed. I doubt I will get stuck in the oil pit I got stuck in with my boyfriend in 8th grade. Things are a little easier and less risky now.

But the risk still comes. This weekend I'll be there, sorting through the faces of many people I haven't seen for 46 years. What will I find?

 A 90-something friend of mine went to one of his reunions recently. He walked into the room, looked around, and said, "Who are all these old people??"

The Santa Fe Railroad station in Stafford

How do you prepare for a reunion of people that you haven't kept in contact with? 

What's important here? 

I ask my husband to help me choose what clothes to take. "Does this make my ____ look big?" I inquire. "Maybe if I drape enough around my neck and spike my hair, my wrinkles won't be quite so noticeable? What do you think?"

Of course the grain elevators

He says, "Take that. You look great in that." He's watched me in the Vain Parade since 1965.

My sisters and me, far beyond high school years as we pose for this photo in 2007.
I took a train from this station to Topeka in 1969 to have my wedding portraits made on Alf Landon's estate.

But what really is important here?

I tell my daughter that I'm a little nervous. She gives me her typical, kindly words of encouragement. "Well at least you're slim!"

I realize that I'm talking way too much about looks.

My childhood home

There are ghosts around the old haunts. Will the girls still gossip and some of them still be mean?

Or will there be this softening that can happen with age? When the people you maybe weren't best friends with now have something so lovely about them that you might never have taken the time to notice in high school?

And of course: the high school, built in the year my mother was five.

Stay tuned. I'll let you know next week!