Reunion Weekend

Last year around this time I wrote about how the first four years out of college go even faster than the four years as an undergrad. It’s a scary, yet accurate premise. Continuing that thought, the more you get out away from college the more serious life becomes. So just imagine the thoughts going through my mind as I drove down to Fairfield for my five year college reunion this past weekend.

I had heard from kids older than me that the five year reunion is an absolute blast, so my expectations were sky high. Even with the high standards set in my mind I had a great time. If I have more fun over the course of a weekend the rest of the year I’ll be pleasantly surprised.

It’s hard to describe the feeling that reunion weekend dug up for many of my former classmates. It was a blend of nostalgia, happiness on the verge of giddiness, and a return to a previous state of normalcy that’s never really left the synapses of our minds. We were all transfixed in a way where our experience within the confines of Fairfield felt almost separate and disconnected from the outside world. The communal sense that we had established during our tenure as college students was rebuilt, even if only for 48 hours.

Obviously whenever a large contingent of your college classmates gets together there’s going to be some awkwardness. This can’t be avoided. Within the first sixty seconds of showing up I saw an acquaintance that I liked well enough to say hello to. The only problem was that he was with a kid I didn’t know at all. After the kid that I knew and I shared a bro hug I felt obligated to also extend a bro hug to his buddy. It was clearly forced and awkward, but I felt as if consistency was the best policy. Later on if I saw a group of girls and hugged the first one, the rest of the group was getting the same greeting.

As great as it was to see so many familiar faces, and it was, I felt like most people there had an agenda, whether intentionally or not. I don’t feel like people went out of their way to brag about life events (The number of people that were married or engaged was staggering. Facebook has kept me apprised of most of these events, but I was still slightly overwhelmed), but there was a lot of self pride going on (and most of it rightfully so). Others seemed to be making statements that ranged from “Check out my new figure” to “I’m successful and no longer have a coke problem.” Again, no one was ostentatious in a way that was off putting, but it was almost like the five year reunion was a stage for everyone with something to prove (whether it be to themselves or otherwise).

That said, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention how good looking most of the females were. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’ve been living in the middle of nowhere Connecticut for the past five years, but the female members of the Class of ’08 were bringing the heat this weekend. As one friend said, “Say what you will about Fairfield girls, but they crush evening/formal wear.” I also assume that the people that really ballooned opted not to show up.

Fairfield put our class up in the dorms and I swear it was like we never left. For the life of me I can’t figure out how we all packed our entire lives into such a confined space during our Freshman and Sophomore years, but that didn’t seem to matter this weekend. The entire scene was pulled from a calendar in April of 2005. People were playing Frisbee (and Kan Jam) in the quad, mini-refrigerators were stocked with beer, toilet paper laced the hallways after a few rounds of late night bowling, and the Domino’s delivery guy was knocking on the door every five minutes from 1-4am.

It was exhilarating to fall into the same patterns and routines that we were all accustomed to in years past. We went to the same establishments for breakfast and to familiar places on campus to re-connect with our former selves. At a beer garden right outside the campus center a group of us that worked in the rec plex as intramural supervisors ran into our old boss and chatted him up for a bit. Afterwards we felt compelled to return to our old workspace where we enjoyed a game of P-I (not enough time for a full game of P-I-G) and sweet talked our way into getting free t-shirts. The area where I most noticed everyone returning to the way we acted in college was in conversations.

The people I talked to the most this weekend were the people that I talked to the most in college. This makes sense on the surface level because most of these people are my closest friends that I’m still in touch with, but things picked right back up with others (namely former romantic interests) that I no longer see or speak to. For whatever reason this led to a series of deep conversations/”heart-to-hearts” about the past. I felt as if both parties in these talks were much more free and uninhibited than in the past (in most cases a female I was speaking to was married/engaged, so the sexual tension that was once there was gone). It was easier to talk about past transgressions and how they made us feel in the moment. These open and free discussions about the past made me wonder about how things may have played out differently . What if I had done this or not done that, etc. It’s pretty fascinating how fickle the paths are that we take.

Not surprisingly, the prevailing thought that I had about our reunion weekend is how fast everything went. Time flew by just like college did. There were 10-15 people that I feel like I only spoke to for thirty seconds. After a quick hello I assumed that I would see them later on and just didn’t. The goodbyes on Saturday night and Sunday morning were drawn out and only slightly less difficult than they were five years ago. We had quickly re-established connections and then severed them just as quickly. As I drove away from my second home I wished for four more years of weekends like the one I just had.

As challenging as it was to leave I found comfort in knowing that there’s a bond among us that’s greater than any of us even know. I may not see or speak to people that I considered friends in college until the next reunion five years from now, but no matter where we go and what we do we’ll always have this collection of shared memories to fall back on. That’s something that we can all be proud of.