Next Saturday there is a reunion I was invited to attend; and I will. But I hate the word or hate the concept is probably more accurate. I don't hate this group of people and it could actually be fun. It's just that I never go back. Or haven't until now. So here I go, again, trying something new. It must be the year for stepping out of what's familiar.
I learned to not go back from my mother. She's the expert. "Don't look back because you'll only get slapped in the face. There's nothing worth going back for, anyway." My family doesn't hold reunions and no one would go, even if someone tried. A legacy of the ultimate "letting go," although it is not quite the spirit of how this phrase in usually intended.
This reunion is for the Portland Women's Theatre Company, in which I was involved for several years when we first moved to the area in 1985. It could be fun. A couple of the people I've seen here and there over the years; others I haven't seen nor heard from at all. I was involved in the middle years of the group (which has been defunct for a while). This reunion was sparked by the interest of a woman researching the history of the group along with some other resources in the area. That woman just happened to be a student in one of my partner's classes. So, in some ways, my partner is partially responsible for this reunion or at least for lighting the spark of inspiration which led to this project.
So, with hope for a paradigm shift of understanding, I will go to the reunion which is, thankfully, being held at the home of one of the people we have kept in touch with since that time. And I will go into it with a positive outlook and deep down the awareness that, again, my mother's lesson may not be the whole truth. Maybe sometimes you can revisit the past and have it be okay.
I learned to not go back from my mother. She's the expert. "Don't look back because you'll only get slapped in the face. There's nothing worth going back for, anyway." My family doesn't hold reunions and no one would go, even if someone tried. A legacy of the ultimate "letting go," although it is not quite the spirit of how this phrase in usually intended.
This reunion is for the Portland Women's Theatre Company, in which I was involved for several years when we first moved to the area in 1985. It could be fun. A couple of the people I've seen here and there over the years; others I haven't seen nor heard from at all. I was involved in the middle years of the group (which has been defunct for a while). This reunion was sparked by the interest of a woman researching the history of the group along with some other resources in the area. That woman just happened to be a student in one of my partner's classes. So, in some ways, my partner is partially responsible for this reunion or at least for lighting the spark of inspiration which led to this project.
So, with hope for a paradigm shift of understanding, I will go to the reunion which is, thankfully, being held at the home of one of the people we have kept in touch with since that time. And I will go into it with a positive outlook and deep down the awareness that, again, my mother's lesson may not be the whole truth. Maybe sometimes you can revisit the past and have it be okay.
I have such a strange relationship with my past. I remember it in non-linear chunks, focusing on experiences and rarely really being sure of exactly WHEN they happened...I would never go to a reunion of my high school, mostly because I would not be able to place anyone there, even from my miniscule graduating class of 21. I remember one or two of them, but when others contact me on Face Book, or my blog, with great stories of the time we snuck off behind the tree in the parking lot to smoke cigarettes, I feel as if they are telling me a story of some stranger's life. Even when I look at their pictures, I can't remember them. If I were to be faced with these people in real life, in some hotel ball room or restaurant, I think I would be overcome with a fear of my own lack of memory that would break my brain.
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