From a little over a month ago

My 10-year high school reunion is in about a month. I'm not going. Instead, I'll be visiting my parents, watching them enjoy time with my kids, and living in the present instead of trying to reconnect with people from my past, many of whom were never even part of my life to begin with (which happens when your graduating class was 600+). While a tiny part of me is curious about what the reunion would be like, the rest of me already knows. Awkward. Strange. Uncomfortable. I've kept up with the people that I want to still know, and thanks to Facebook, I can lump the rest of the class of 2002 into two categories: those who live in the present and those who are stuck in the past.  A few nights ago, I packed up my scrapbooks and photo albums for our upcoming move. And then I tackled my big box of correspondence. From the post-it note from my dad to the letters from my Russian penpal, I have kept just about every letter, birthday card, note passed in class, and postcard I have ever received. That's a lot of words. And when you're packing, it's a lot of baggage. Paul rolled his eyes at me as I went through my pile, reading almost everything, laughing at the cards from ex-boyfriends, smiling at the thank-you notes from teachers, treasuring the annual birthday cards I can no longer receive from my grandma, and sighing at the "friends forever" letters from my former BFFs.  Now who's stuck in the past? I threw away a substantial pile, but I held on to even more. Too many good memories. Too many relics that will only gain value with time. Too many hard lessons learned that must not be forgotten. So I put the papers I kept into a plastic file folder box, and I put it in a cardboard box next to my wedding memory box so that the movers can take it all to the new house. But I made sure to leave enough space in the letter box for more: the cards and drawings made by my little girls, the papers covered in globs of paint and wobbly letters. I'd throw out all the old memories to make room for the works of those two sets of hands. So no. I do not live in the past. And maybe most of those attending next month's reunion aren't either; maybe they're just going to revisit their boxed up old letters... But I'll be too busy to go there with them.