Reunion

I remember being a teenager and hearing people talk about "reunions" - 5 year, 10 year, 30 year... thinking "man, those people are old!" and "Why would you ever want to go a reunion of people you don't hang out with anymore? Borrrrrrrr-inggggg." Granted, in my teenage years I was still surrounded by the same people I had hung out with my entire childhood, so I couldn't fathom the fact that you might lose touch with people due to anything other than willful negligence. At that time, my little cosmos had no worn seams which allowed people to be shoved out of it due to overcrowding. Now my cosmos is indeed a little worn around the seams, and (I hate to admit) maybe slightly overcrowded... So, when I received an invitation to a 10 year Congressional Page reunion, I jumped at the chance to once again gather in those amazing people to my inner circle.

It was, by all accounts, a successful weekend. The D.C. weather cooperated most willingly to honor the return of her wayward flock, Pages and returning college students alike. I coerced Matt into coming by telling him next to nothing of our plans and simply packing a suitcase and jumping on a plane. We missed the opportunity to wander the halls of my prestigious former stomping grounds - the House Page School in the Library of Congress and the House Floor - and instead managed to chance across the group on a street corner near Eastern Market. I had worried that perhaps I wouldn't recognize my old friends, but maybe I should have been more worried that they wouldn't recognize me without my boy-cut hair and my then customary devil pigtails. Regardless, 10 years have been kind to us all and it was amazing to see that we arrogant young rising stars could mellow into such charming and talented adults. For 2 days we played the "what are you doing and where are you living?" game, and it turns out that even though political ambitions may have given way to other life opportunities, we are still doing ok. Probably a third had become lawyers, another third doctors, and the rest of us... well, we're still deciding, but I'm sure it'll be something good. I connected with people currently living in the Boston area, and hope that our plans to reconnect back in our hometown were not just a side effect of nostalgia and wine. Only time will tell...

It was also nice to be challenged to rethink my opinions of people. No 17 year old is perfect, not even me, and I will admit that I had categorized some of these people in the wrong file in my memory. Or maybe I had them right back then, but they have matured past whatever grievance my memory held. I'm glad I got the chance to fix that.

It was also enlightening to talk to my old friends and hear their life stories. We couldn't have known where we would be today - if you had asked me then, I would have guessed I would have gone to the Naval Academy, become a pilot, and probably be married to some other fellow aviator planning out how to retire at 40 and move on to our next careers as airline pilots or CEOs... contrast that to the girl who a few short months later decided to forgo the Academy route and do ROTC instead, meeting on the first day the boy who would later become my husband, cutting short a grand Naval career to pursue the nobel art of building a family and becoming a hippie personal trainer/coffee shop owner/ whatever-makes-me-happy entrepreneur...

There are similar stories, some grander, some sadder, but all with a twist of the unexpected. What would our 17 year old selves say to us now?

I'll put up the pics I managed to take in the next day or so...