Something I said I’d never do:  go to a class reunion, especially not a high school class reunion.  What I am doing on July 26 and 27: having two of my classmates from Colegio Bolívar stay over at my house so they have a place to crash for the class reunion we’re going to.  My class graduated on June 9, 1978 so it has now been 35 years since I saw most of the people I will see next month.  A couple of weeks ago, a number of our classmates met in Cali.  Those of us who couldn’t make it down to that reunion started chatting up a storm on Facebook and before you know it, we were planning CB78-USA.  David, who lived down the street from me in Cali now lives in Davie, just a few miles from my house.  Margarita, another classmate, lived in Weston for a long time.  There are several more in Miami.  José, another classmate who lives in Cali, may actually travel up here for the reunion.  I hope he does. Of our class of about 37, I think there will be 8-10 of us gathering and Roxanna, Debbie and I will probably stay up late talking–high school sleepover, all over again!

So what has changed, what is different, given the finality of the decision I made to put as much distance between myself and a period and place in my life that I experienced as terribly painful?  Time, obviously.  Facebook is a strange and marvelous creation for its persistent, ‘in your face’ reminders that we never really leave our past behind.  We get lost and then get found by each other in so many different ways.

We are offered opportunities to re-consider what we saw and understood about ourselves.  Who are these folks who I grew up with?  Colegio Bolívar was a Pre-K-12th grade school opened initially for the children of expats doing business in Colombia.  It was also small.  The majority of my class started with me in Pre-K so we spent a long time together in pretty close quarters.  What was once a well organized and ordered set of data points—x is friends with y and is not friends with z—is much more random now.  I am curious and strangely grateful to spend even just two days with people who knew me when I was a little girl, who knew my brothers, who came to my house, who woke up and saw the same Farallones de Cali I did, who maybe still miss them like I do.  And several of my classmates will probably remember my mother.   So yes.  I am very happy to get to do something I never thought I would do.