Well at least I wasn't exaggerating about the flashbacks part. My little "Union Event" was nothing but flashbacks - if you graduated from the earlier part of last century. Mind you I had limitted expectations - I knew none of my friends were going but thought I would least run into some old recognizable faces, some professors, something to remind me of my old glory days. Steve and I got to the event which was held in the upstairs room of a communal library of the Union Leage on East 37th Street. So i'm standing there sheepishly with my $10 glass of wine and Steve keeps nudging me to socialize with my fellow alumns from the 1890's, and if that wasn't bad enough - the drinks weren't even free.
We left in under thirty minutes and on the way out, ran into someone, someone!, who I had gone to school with. In school we were pretty close in the sense that our sorority and his fraternity did a lot of partying together. He kept me abreast of his Union gossip and I must write here that I am shocked that so little has changed with some people. We traded "grown up" stories - "She's married now;" "He has 27 people working for him;" - and then there's always the dud that brings everyone else down - "It's amazing how well he performs at work being he pulls bong hits before work;" or "He's sleeping with a married woman." Nice.
Sometimes I wonder about where I went to college. In high school, many of my friends left Miami for big schools, well-known universities and the Ivy League. I ducked out of Florida to return to New York but came to a school where I felt so few were like me. Of course I found my niche of amazing girlfriends, but I never felt like we as a group fit into the complacency around us. I used to think what if all the time - what if I went to another school? what if we never started dating in the first place? But then I realized I wouldn't be where I am today, and I wouldn't trade that in for anything.
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