MIDDLE-AGED ANGST:

HOW I PREPARED FOR MY HIGH SCHOOL REUNION

(First Printing January 2001 in "Just A Thought")

From The Beat Goes On

Segment Two

The Reunion


By

 Adele C. Geraghty
Class of 1969
____The call is sounded to near and far; my high school class is holding a reunion. Now ordinarily when I hear about other people's reunions I get those warm, fuzzy feelings associated with lifelong camaraderie and heartfelt communion. That's why it came, as a surprise when I found my immediate reaction to my own was a cold sweat, clammy palms, light-headedness and nausea. It didn't take a scholastic aptitude test to recognize the symptoms. They were the same ones that accompanied me to the first school dance, the first co-ed party, the first induction into the popular crowd. They were the sum total of all adolescent insecurities rolled into one. Now, however, it was thirty-two years later and teen angst had metamorphosed into middle-aged anxiety. There was no getting around it. It was time to stand and deliver.

____I had the great fortune to have attended a truly wonderful high school, where I can honestly say, despite the regular misgivings of adolescent ritual; I spent a few of the happiest years of my life. It was one of those specialized high schools, for which an entrance exam as well as a portfolio are required, very much like the one depicted in the movie "Fame" about twenty years ago.

____The students had great talent and it was assumed that when we left the academic nest to fly on our own, that those talents would take us far. As the years passed I watched the names of those I knew pop up in the media on a regular basis. It was easy to assume that even those faces which went unnoticed were also living the life of the upper creative echelon.

____So when the announcement came that we were to gather once more within the hallowed halls, panic quickly took the wheel. I decided without a second thought to find the best plastic surgeon in the Hudson Valley, have my teeth capped, starve myself into a size 10 and create a suitable pseudonym I could drop around, claiming I'd been the honest thing in Cannes for the last 20 years. Yeah, right!

____Relief and reality came in the form of a fellow alumnus who shared his own feelings of impending criticism and plans for daily sit-ups and hair implants! I wasn't alone. We shared with each other not just the anxiety of not quite making the grade, but the realities, misgivings and miracles of the last thirty years. There was no contrast and compare, just genuine interest.

Real life isn't measured with the precision of a slide rule and T-square. Some of us became side tracked, others gave up. Some chose totally different paths than those they'd originally prepared for. Some of us dropped out of the game. There was a war going on and, those of us who thankfully avoided it, remained behind to mourn those who never returned. Others found our talents weren't enough to whether the competition and decided the mundane had a place in life, too. Then there were those who chose to succumb to life's longing for itself and raised families; the ultimate creation.

____Art imitates life, so the saying goes. If that be so, then may there always be those of us who live the variety needed for artists to draw upon. With that in mind, I will attend my high school reunion with the confidence and hope, not that I will be noted for my accomplishments, but that I may be remembered for the person I was and the friend I've been. And if someone happens to say, "You know, she really had talent!", then that's the icing on the cake!

____There is something after all to having lived through the times of assassinations of our greatest leaders, numerous wars and police actions, the development of the Equal Rights Amendment, the destruction of the Berlin wall, the end of the Viet Nam War, the landing of men on the moon and worldwide computerization. We stand on the brink of a new millennium. I can't think of a better time in my life, or the history of mankind, than to take stock of the gift of life and all that it embraces. It's just too short and precious to second guess.

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Photoes of Daisy Aldan, from the collection of Lee Stewart, 1953

Page Twelve of Twenty-Three

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