Could you think of anything worse than seeing all the people you went to school with over thirty years ago? 

Yes, seeing all the people, you went to school with and didn’t like!

The latter is always what seems to occur reunion or no reunion!  Since I skipped out of those school gates, the only people I kept in touch with were the ones I wanted to.  However, the only people I would regularly bump into or be contacted by were the ones I didn’t want to see or hear from! 

Its called sods law and you can bet your bottom dollar that this would be the same case should a reunion ever take place!

To be fair I often do wonder what happened to my classmates and still can remember each and everyone’s name and in register order! (Is that sad or what?)

Would the boy whose twice baked souffle finally have forgiven me for sticking my finger in and deflating it with great delight? I still can visualise the pained look on his face after whipping it out (the souffle) and those fleeting moments of pride turning into horror when out of spite I popped it! (Yes, I finally admit to it!)

Would the girl whose ears I pierced and made bleed profusely still be scarred from such an experience?  What happened to the girl who regularly joined me on my newspaper round and nicked peoples milk and orange juice?  Would any of the boys actually grown up or still be sniggering at nonsense and telling jokes about peoples mums? So many questions …

What happened to the popular people?  Were they now just living ordinary lives?  Were they single, divorced, or just looking?  Who was married with children or grandchildren?  Had the hot person, Miss/Master Popular & Totally Gorgeous let themselves go and are now nothing more than a fat and frumpy individual who works in a library and only holidays in Skegness?

What about the boy whose name was scribbled all over school books surrounded by love hearts?  He had been ‘the one’ naively seen as a keeper.  Would he now cause the stomach butterflies or a dry mouth or would the damage time has served be surveyed with relief and a feeling of luck overtaking from successfully dodging that particular bullet?

Maybe the class nerd had turned into a handsome stud?  After all your whole perspective of geeks change as you become older.  You realise that they are the bones of every school and the only ones who didn’t pretend.   Let’s face it during school we all pretended about something whether it was to be popular, to be cool or pretending to like or care about the cool kids who were just control freaks or not to care if people didn’t like you. 

The law of averages state that in general people get hotter as they get older because they grow into their features and finally learn what to do with their bodies.   This takes time and time away from any peer pressure school brings.

It’s only fair that the people who were made fun of have become hot to trot long after the braces have been removed or the acne has disappeared as their confidence grows at the same rate as they have!

My imagination runs wild visualising a rogue’s gallery of middle-age classmates who have lost hair and gained bellies and that’s just the girls (Only kidding!).

At one point in the wake of Facebook, I did go on a bit of a mission to find out more, but my journey of discovery was one of doom and gloom, people had died, someone had been murdered, people were doing drugs, hooked on bad things and there didn’t seem to be any happy ever afters!  Most had moved away and fallen into the big black hole called ‘life’.  They had all moved on, hopefully up and had left behind that adolescent/teenager era and stepped into adulthood without a backward turn or the safety net of past friends and school mates and bloody good luck to them all!

I used to wonder if anyone would get an overwhelming bout of reminiscing and instigate a nostalgic visit back to a time and place that formed an important part of our lives.

Who would have the desire to revisit the past in addition to the inclination to set to work and organise such an event?  Out of the blue invitations would start to arrive.  Dilemma – would I want to go?  Probably just to be nosey, as I am the worlds worse for being inquisitive, always the one asking questions, (I just cannot help myself!)  If I had been a cat I would have been killed a long time ago!

But everyone wants to be on top of their game and looking their best and let’s face it this is never going to ever synchronize so the probability of people getting together would be as slim as a toothpick. 

Another overriding factor is our need to keep up with the Jones’s, Smith’s, Browns and anyone else.  Why is it that our dress to impress attitude and one-upmanship never disappears?  Why do we feel we must rent a luxury sports car for the day and see if Tom Hardy is free?  At what age can you be to celebrate your current life without all the crap and drama from school?

Facebook has without doubt made it easier to track people down and make contact.  Sure enough for most people who made contact with me they weren’t the ones I would have liked to hear from and so it was a quick goodbye to FB and the whole idea of any reunion.  It all became a distant memory and that’s where it has stayed.

However, I would like to think if I ever found myself at a reunion the social nonsense of the past would lift like mist across the years, and instead, a sense of connection would pervade the space.

I am sure as time has gone by and taught me many a good lesson that there would be a precious joy in finding each other alive and thriving to celebrate crossing the years together and would replace any urge to judge or pry.  Hopefully we would all remember a time that created a portfolio of happy memories attached to the place that is actually quite appealing and one that every now and then I wished I could return to!

Memories - at the time you didnt even know you were making them!