Why I Finally Caved and Went to a High School Reunion

After 35 years, our writer realized she was ready to check in on her past.

When the postcard arrived inviting graduates from 1990 back to class, so to speak, I was intrigued but still didn’t think I would actually go. Thirty-five years is a significant distance from where I am now, catapulted into a new century and 810 miles away from my high school in Wilmette, IL— a well-heeled suburb north of Chicago and the backdrop for many John Hughes films captured in the same era.

Despite positive memories, I’d never attended a reunion. I keep a tight group of friends from those days, but, at the 10-year mark, I was living in Chicago and figured, who could I be missing out on seeing that I didn’t run into at the bars? Perhaps self-doubt got the better of me. I was a copywriter at an ad agency penning very unsexy direct response commercials not flashy Superbowl spots—weren’t reunions just for bragging rights, anyway?

Also, I’d attended an all girls Catholic school. If you returned to your high school gym as an adult, I thought it should at least offer a wider pool for harmless flirting or a regretful hook-up. Maybe that’s just in the movies (a missed opportunity for Mr. Hughes).

I was interested when the 20th reunion rolled around, but I’d moved to Brooklyn and had just returned to work at a magazine following maternity leave. Any reserve energy was put towards figuring out child care, schlepping a breast pump on the subway, and catching up with local friends. Uncorking a time capsule of my teen years was not a priority. 

The reunion postcard was headed for the recycling bin yet again until my friend Meg began campaigning for us to team up, along with our friend Kara, and plan the reunion after party. Damn you Meg for recognizing the student council nerd in me who still loves to organize events and put the word out on blast for a party. 

It wasn’t just Meg’s persuasion that won me over, though. My son Soren started high school last year and as I’ve watched him experience this stage, a tenderness for that time in my life began bubbling to the surface. It’s not nostalgia to turn back time or a longing for what was, but gratitude for the people in my life then (and honestly, relief that we made it through OK). Watching Soren come into his own has engendered softness for that messy, formative period. 

Also, it’s impossible to not feel the weight of policies or the cultural kneecapping of women at this moment. The rollback of Roe v. Wade and lack of access to safe reproductive care for all, women being actively silenced (the Epstein Files spectacle) and blamed (no, women did not ruin the workplace), and a man convicted of sexual abuse has been elected president (twice). I needed to be reminded that I had once moved through a day-to-day world led by women. Like, that actually happened, and could be possible again. 

This tangle of influences is how on a bright Saturday in early October, I found myself back in the foyer of the Regina Dominican High School auditorium. I wore a denim jumpsuit (not as formal as a dress, but chic without overkill), and had a brief regret that it might read as former-Midwesterner-moves-to-Brooklyn-and-thinks-she’s-all-that. I was reminded of just how subversive standing out could be as current students clad in the latest school uniforms welcomed us. I checked in at the welcome table and was handed a name tag with a black and white image of a fresh faced me from my senior class portrait. The class portrait where all 171 girls are dressed in an identical black crew neck sweater and strand of fake pearls. 

As we filed into the auditorium for mass, I worried that I wouldn’t recall names of people I hadn’t seen in three plus decades. I wondered if people had changed dramatically, evolved, retained their essence? The friends I’d kept up with I was thrilled to see. But, would I relate to the bulk of these women now? Also, would they recognize me? I was a bottle blonde back in the day. And yes, it did take a few people a moment to match the name to my now-face. I did the same as I took in others, as if in a fuzzy dream state where all the elements are there, things feel familiar but details aren’t lining up, exactly. 

The low buzz of cautious joy and anxiety was palpable among the classes. As for our crew of 35 from 1990, we slipped into our seats and reverted right back into our code of whispering, raised eyebrows, and irreverent church giggles. The priest had to ask the auditorium to please quiet down (several times) and kindly wait on our catching up so mass could begin. It’s reassuring to know that we’d not entirely grown up. 

Mass concluded with the school fight song—We love the crown, the star, the book, these symbols of our tie to Regina Dominican High!—and we were dismissed to wander the hallways, glasses of wine in hand. We noted the improvements like the renovated cafeteria and a school store with merch. And took just as much comfort in how some things remained unchanged. The senior lounge, for example, with its thrifted couches and stained carpets, was thankfully still a total dump.

I was reminded that night of what a rarefied space we had existed in. One that encouraged the confidence to take risks. We didn’t show up to impress (no makeup, wrinkled uniforms). We weren’t contorting ourselves for the attention of boys or caught in the swirl of competing for the male gaze. You could smoke in the parking lot with the Goth girls and be in the National Honor Society (or be a Goth NHS scholar). It was possible to join the pom-pom squad and have a byline in the student paper. Even the class president ditched school to go to the beloved greasy spoon, Sarkis, for lunch. There’s a weight lifted in not feeling pressure about how you dress or who you hang out with. I was in a “we do not care” club then and have embraced something similar at this midlife point. 

As the school-hosted event wound down, our class moved to the after party at a cozy craft brewery nearby founded by a younger alumna and her husband. At the bar, I sunk into conversation with women I’d not seen since May of 1990, yet it was somehow the least awkward of cocktail parties. We were unguarded and unflinchingly honest in sharing the broad strokes of what had shaped our adult lives. It didn’t take much to go in deep with classmates (and not even ones I’d been particularly close with) about divorce and co-parenting, children who hadn’t yet found their path, health complications, caring for aging parents, radical career shifts, and the sorrow of burying friends and family. It was like speed-dating, but a how-are-you-no-bullshit edition. Our lives had taken many paths—as parents, educators, lawyers, financial brokers, a somatic yoga instructor—yet it felt so safe to share who we were and how we’d turned out (and were still striving to become). 

When calling around to plan the after party for our class, I discovered that this was a busy weekend for reunions and homecomings. Many local bars and restaurants were booked, and the brewery was also hosting the class five years ahead of us. So, I wasn’t surprised when a group of dudes a few classes ahead of us, graduates of the then all-boys school (it went co-ed four years after we graduated) a mile from our school, came pouring into the bar following their reunion. They were rugby or football teammates or whatever. I couldn’t be bothered to engage, we had no time for them that night. The best I could give was a pleasant smile as I threw elbows at the bar to squeeze between them and order a beer. 

I admitted to a classmate that this was my first high school reunion. Turns out it was hers too. I asked what had prompted her to come. She took a beat and answered, “Well, it was this or binge watch Netflix with my husband. But, actually, anti-depressants and a lot of therapy.” It was hilarious, real, and brave of her to admit. In that moment I realized that type of self-knowing humor and candor was exactly why I was drawn back to this place and these women who showed me many years ago, and now tonight, that we should—and can continue to—do brave things.  

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