My 30th High School reunion is coming up and I’ve been a little nervous about going. As I watch the stream of old photos get posted on the SHS Reunion Facebook page, I can’t help but be apprehensive. I keep looking at the photos thinking about who I was thirty years ago, who I am now, and where I thought I would be.

I’m guessing/hoping that I’m not alone.

It’s not that I’m ashamed of who I was during my high school years, it’s just that I am not particularly proud. I never felt like I had a real “roll”. I did have a group of amazing girlfriends (many still close friends), but I never felt like a star student or a dedicated athlete or a talented artist — and that was one of the few things I was kinda good at. I was a solid C+ across the board.

Maybe no one really felt completely confident in high school. Maybe everyone cringes when they think of themselves as a teenager. But, when I look at the old pictures being posted on Facebook, there are a few faces that not only always looked happy with who they were, but they seemed to own the room. I look at the pictures of me and, maybe to the untrained eye you can’t see the insecurity in my 16 year-old smile, but it screams out to me now.

And, it’s not just who I was in high school that has me uncomfortable about this reunion, it’s who I am now. At our 20th reunion Jack was just out of the hospital following his stem cell transplant. That reunion was a blur (and not just because of the wine). I didn’t know what to say when people asked what I was doing with my life.

“Married, two kids, live in Maplewood, still work on my photography. Oh, and my son has a disease called Adrenoleukodystrophy. He just got out of the hospital where we’ve been living for two and a half months. I know how to change a g-tube and hook up an IV.”

Trust me – I got a lot of awkward hugs that night.

Today, I’m more comfortable in my new life and know how to share answers to “What are you up to these days?” in a way that makes people comfortable. Or, as comfortable as you can make them (sometimes it backfires – stories about a 19 year-old’s potty habits aren’t always a hit). Even with my new found confidence, I’m nervous about walking into a room full of people with memories of teenage Jesse Cappello and questions about middle-age Jesse Torrey.

I know some of my old friends are feeling the same way. Facing a room full of your childhood can be intimidating. It’s not just that you worry about how people will react to who you were in high school and who you are now, but it can get you thinking about who you thought you would be thirty years later – what your story would be. Things as shallow as what you would look like and what you would drive and things far deeper like what you would have accomplished and what you would have done to better yourself/others/the world.

Reunions have us all looking in the mirror, but maybe that’s a good thing. Everyone has a story. Perhaps it’s good for all of us to go back sometimes and evaluate who we were and who we’ve become, even if it means we need to swallow hard along the way.

So, I’m going to the reunion. I hope I come back with no regrets. Grateful for spending time with old friends and having relived some old memories. Maybe even have made some new ones.

Love, Jess

I have a hair appointment scheduled for next week. I may not have the best answers to “What’s going on with you these days?”, but at least I can cover the gray.