Cheers to 1985

One of life’s little mysteries is that before we even know what has hit us, we have gone from a high schooler to “approaching middle age” in what can only be described as the literal meaning of the blink of an eye. In an instant, the years have flown by, and on its wings, so has our youth. Having said that, I must admit that I have hit the 20 year milestone. Twenty years since I graduated from complete oblivion into real life, or something like that. I actually remember the day I graduated clearly. I remember that up until that point graduating was all I wanted to do. And when the moment finally arrived I thought “holy cow, what am I going to do with the rest of my life?!” And through some ironic twist of fate, here I sit, still wondering that same question! But I digress…I was commenting on how rapidly the time passed. Honestly though, don’t you feel like you were just there? Finishing up your final football season and laying down those pads for the final time, writing your last piece for the school paper, cheering that last 3 pointer, prom, taking one final dramatic bow as the curtain falls. It certainly isn’t that life has gone straight downhill from there. Quite the contrary, life has been good. It’s more that I find myself in awe of how swiftly the years have crept by me. Time is sneaky that way. Milestones like “20 years” seem to bring it all to the forefront. And so do reunions! Now if those don’t throw up red flags, I don’t know what does! But I have found that there is a pattern to them. For those classes who even bother with a 5 year reunion, it’s basically a post college bash. Many aren’t married yet, it’s basically just a swapping of credentials and a who’s who in the working world at this point. By 10 to 15 years, many of the classmates are married with children and let’s be honest, it’s just a meeting to see who stayed married, who got fat and who went bald. But by the 20th reunion, and with everyone looking at turning 40 in a year or two, things seem to shift significantly. It’s really more about reminiscing. It seems like you forget who was in what clique, who was hot and who was not. I think it’s about now that we finally look in the mirror and see what we’ve been waiting to see……a grown-up. We can laugh at what seemed like a big deal back then, we can laugh at the good times, and maybe even at some of the bad ones, too. We can look into the eyes of some of our former classmates and remember why they were our true friends in the first place, and we can forge new friendships with some classmates we didn’t know so well back then. And we can get down on our hands and knees and hope for two things: 1) that the next twenty years don’t go by as fast as these did, and 2) that even if they do, we’ll still be around to enjoy them!
So raise a glass of bubbly to the Class of 1985 everywhere!! Even though these are mighty good days too, there is something magical about that time in our lives that makes us want to claim “those were the best days of my life.“
Quote of the day- “Laughter is a tranquilizer with no side effects.” -Anonymous (Thanks Erika)
A special congratulations to all of my friends at NNHS, CHS, and AHS