I haven’t eaten a bagel in over a month. Or pizza or ice cream or even a bowl of pasta. You see, I am on a quest to lose the last 6 pounds that will put me at the exact weight I was when I graduated high school 20 years ago this month. When I show up for my reunion next week, it’ll be like nothing has changed.
Twenty years flew by in the blink of an eye.
To you Lost fans out this, this may actually mean something. The first ever episode of the ground-breaking series began with a close-up of protagonist Jack Shepherd’s eye flying open after his plane crashed onto a seemingly deserted island. After the subsequent six seasons of falling down hatches, encountering and fighting “others” on the island, surviving a smoke monster and flashing back, sideways and forwards through time, the series ends with Jack lying in the same spot where we first met him, a close-up on his eye which closes dramatically as the screen goes black. The producers leave open the possibility that the years between when Jack landed on the island and when he dies have actually been just an instant, that time has been somewhat irrelevant. Maybe.
Now, I don’t profess to have fully--or even remotely--understood the true meaning of Lost, though I have spent a ridiculous amount of time talking and thinking about it. However, a few things are clear. One: conventional notions of time and space are rejected as the characters travel freely through past, present, and possible futures. While these ideas seem wildly unrealistic, I can sort of relate to it as I approach my 20th reunion next week.
My life has moved in a linear fashion since June 19, 1990. I went off to college, moved on to grad school, lived in New York City, got married, and had a baby, in that order. But right now, as I sit here contemplating the twenty years that has gone by, JJ Abrams' time-bending notions make some sense to me. I don’t feel older and I don’t feel changed. If I see Steven L., I will still stammer. I will still wonder if my outfit makes me look fat. I will still think that Jeremy P. is cute, even if he is bald, and I will smile sweetly at Sarah B., who is now my Facebook friend, though I will never like her.
Yet, there is tangible evidence that life has changed dramatically, most notably the toddler who is yelling “Happy day day!” from his crib upstairs. (And yes, that extra six pounds.) But part of me actually feels that I might have jumped, capped and gowned, from that football field, to this present moment on my overstuffed couch. When I think about the people who I will see next week, I’m imagining them as they were too. I think reunions sort of play with our own notions of time and space, or at least force us to challenge them with anti-wrinkle creams and low-fat frozen yogurt.
The penultimate scene in Lost is what really got me thinking about why I am looking forward to seeing my old high school friends. All of the survivors (and other major characters) from the island have gathered in a church for what Jack thinks is his father, Christian’s, funeral. However, when Jack looks in the casket, it is empty and his father appears to inform Jack that he, too, is dead. Jack realizes that all his friends in the church are dead too, and that they were all there to help him “let go” and move on, rather than being “lost” in some supposed purgatory. His father tells him, “The most important part of your life was the time that you spent with these people. Nobody does it alone. You needed them and they needed you”
“For what?” Jack asks.
“To remember,” said Christian.
Hopefully, you only go through high school once. Only once do you get that high of being asked to a dance for the first time or that low of that first hangover; the exuberance of driving your first car to pick up your friends and the heartbreak of that first torrid breakup. The commonality of those experiences make a high school class a unique community. Not to suggest anyone’s early demise (a la Lost), but I feel fortunate to have the opportunity to get together with the people who shared those highs and lows alongside me. We played an important part in each other's lives. Even if we don’t keep in touch (though Facebook has certainly made it easier), it will be good to everyone, face-to-face, once again. Until next week, class of '90....
