Re-re-reunions...

My graduating class is holding a reunion this fall. They are actually joining the classes of 84 and 85 and holding a massive 40ish year reunion. 

I say massive, but it's not that massive. That's part of the reason for the joining of three classes. Fewer and fewer people go as the years pass, either from lack of interest, do you really want to see people from 40 years ago? To well, lack of living. Which is morbid, but starting to be more and more true. I mean, everyone is still young, and it's still shocking, but it's more common than it used to be for sure. And you add in that New Mexico is rough, it's a hard place to live, there is a lot of alcohol and drug abuse and not everyone makes it out okay. 

So anyway...84,85 and 86 are joining up for their reunions. 

I don't think Brent and I are going. We've gone to a couple. We did the 30 for instance, but with Facebook we've kind of caught up with a lot of people, and a lot of other people that we would have wanted to see don't go so...

But there is a Facebook group and people are posting pictures and that's been fun to see. To see who I recognize and what memories they bring back. 

And to be honest there is a lot of remembering what it was like to be in a graduating class of over three hundred people and the same 50 kids pretty much dominated everything. Student government, sports, extra curriculars, the same faces over and over. The highly driven ones. Or at least their parents were. But the pictures from the year book are the same kids over and over, the pictures in this group are as well. 

It was actually a good first representation of bubbles and how they form and stay solid. The "you are in your bubble" moments. I knew a lot of the popular kids from class. I'm not sure if our school was weird or if pop culture just made it seem that way, but a lot of our popular kids were also in honors classes. So I knew them from those classes. I wasn't a jock (if you've even seen me try to be coordinated you know this) and I am not a joiner (as you all know) so the clubs and sports were out for the most part. 

I was also poor and almost everything came with an activities fee. As soon as I saw that part I'd nope right out.

I was in Honor Society for a brief moment. Made it to two or three meetings and the teacher who was running it didn't think I was taking it seriously enough, which I'm sure I wasn't, and didn't like my attitude, which I'm sure I had, so I didn't go back. I think the last straw was a meeting discussing classes we should be looking at taking our junior year and it was the last semester of our freshman year so I had said maybe we should be looking at sophomore year first. Yeah, apparently sophomore year had been planned before 8th grade graduation and I missed that by going to a different school. So shame on me!

Drama was the only thing I stuck with. The meetings were mostly about production and tryouts so there was a reason for them and everyone was kind of in and out as their work schedules allowed, with attitude and lack of taking things seriously being a plus.

But back to those bubbles. I am always surprised when someone outside of my small circle of friends remembers who I was, or am... wait, which is right? Remembers me. Let's just go with that. You were in classes with people, so there were kids you sort of knew from class but going to class as infrequently as I did that really was hit or miss. I think I've mentioned the story about talking to someone I "met" my senior year and having them tell me that we knew each other already. That he had sat behind me in geometry all year. I went to that class twice a week on a good week and had zero memory of him. Being the kid that showed up twice a week, got in trouble for showing up twice a week, and still ended up setting the curve for everyone in class, was a little more memorable apparently. 

But I knew the popular kids, we all knew the popular kids. Like I said, they dominated the most visible groups. The jocks, the preps, the student government holders, every year's yearbook filled with "candid" shots of those kids. The rest of us got our class picture and if you were in a club possibly that club photo as long as you didn't miss that day. I think I made it in two out of four drama club shots. We were all extras in the High School Movie of Highland. 

I've talked before about my friend Jane trying her hardest to make me part of that group our freshman year. She saw something in me that she really liked and wanted to pygmalion into a popular kid. She had a good heart and I love her for trying, and I do feel badly for any blowback she got when I trashed that path, but there was no way I could manage that. Not who I was then. 

But my bubble of kids were the creative ones. The choir kids and the drama kids. I was a drama kid and I dated the choir kids. And when I look back at those years the things that mattered were what shows we were going to do. Who was dating whom in that group. If Adkins was subbing at Highland for anyone's classes that week. 

We knew the popular kids, but we didn't do anything with them. Even though we still called them the popular ones. 

Those bubbles. Those labels. 

There were whole groups of kids who never interacted with the kids from Prep Hall but would still tell you they were the popular ones. 

And growing up I know a few of them better now than I did then. I've read about how insecure they were. The demons they were fighting. The worries they had. 

And they were the same. Pretty much. Swap in pressure from parents to be perfect for other pressures but still a lot of teenage angst. 

But we were all in our bubbles thinking they had it made. They were the golden group. And that they had no idea who we even were. 

Which is why I'm always surprised when someone remembers me. 

Even more surprised when it's positive instead of the time I blew up Jane's Make Denise Popular Plan.