Reunited and it Feels so Good...

Well, not reunited yet, but it's coming up...that's right, the five-year reunion of the Ramaz class of 2002! Do I sound excited? I might be, I'm not sure. Of course, I share the sentiment I keep hearing - I already hang out with everyone I'm gonna talk to, and in fact, most of my friends are comprised of the Ramaz class of 2002. Just this past Friday night, I sat in shul and talked about the reunion with Laura Altman, Aliza (Fessel) Davis, Sasha Stern, and Liz Epstein, and considering that in the last two weeks, I've hung out with Jessica Lerer, Barrie Jakabovics, Jon Krause, Jon Miller, Lea Lowenfeld, and Hannah Schacter-Gampel, and briefly seen Michael Marco, Rachel Meyer, Alex Glasser, and Jenna Rimberg, I don't really feel like I'm lacking, reunionwise.

Does that mean I don't care? Kind of. Don't get me wrong, I like seeing people from high school. I've run into almost everyone at one point or another and had some great conversations with people. Living in the city is great in that way - I've bumped into everyone from Talia Kohen to Moshe Dabah to Michelle Kaplan to Jesse Mermelstein (although he didn't actually acknowledge me.) Some people are even doing vaguely interesting things these days. (Winner and still champion? Alicia Oltuski. It's really humbling when one of your peers has a book deal...at the publishing house where you are an editorial assistant.) But then there are those people who've totally fallen off my radar for the last five years, people I don't imagine have grown up much in the last five years, based, in part, on stupid postings on the Facebook invite for the event that suggest things like a mechitzah to divide the singles from the marrieds - a wee bit hurtful, no? I hate being lumped with the "marrieds," and a part of me does fear feeling like an outsider, because let's face it - married people have a tendency to lump themselves together and exclude themselves, and frankly, the people in our grade who are married are not the people I still hang out with, Aliza excluded. So, you know, F you.

It's kind of weird that we're allowed, nay expected, to bring guests. I mean, I'm thrilled Yoni can come and put some faces to names - it's definitely weird to me that he's never even met Jacob Savage, who, while I've had nothing to do with him since probably my year in Israel, was a guy I spent a lot of time with in high school, or Sam Raymond, who he only knows as my phantom prom date - but it seems this is the kind of event we should have to face sans armor.

High school reunions aren't easy. Not that I've been to any, but it's a mini one every time I run into someone on the street or in a bar. All it takes is that one person who's achieved what you haven't, or who looks as good as you wish you did, or who comes with someone you wish was yours, to make you feel like complete crap. Or maybe that's just me, making the rookie mistake of letting other people dictate her self-worth. But come on - if you'd been writing for as long as you could remember, wouldn't someone your age getting a book deal drive you nuts?