Reunion dilemma: The cowardly lion returns to Oz

Most people, if not all, have seen “The Wizard of Oz,” a story of a girl who wanted to get away from her life and then tries desperately to get back to where she once was. It’s a journey of longing, of trying to find that which once was the everyday, the things taken for granted. With her best friend at her side, she meets some new friends, all of whom are also seekers of the one thing that will grant them happiness: intelligence, love and courage.

High school reunions are just that: a curious expedition seeking an old, familiar land, which somehow has become strangely new again. And though the seekers have varied reasons for deciding to attend, ultimately it is all about the courage.

Deciding to attend a high school reunion is a highly personal decision; there are a lot of issues to consider. Affordability is the adult consideration of choice and it isn’t just a financial one.

That’s because the cost can be so high; there can be so much to lose in going back.

Various sorts of characters played out their roles in the production that was the past. As children, it seemed everyone had their own niche that they neatly fit into: the jocks, the cheerleaders, the thespians, the geeks, the hoods, the poindexters (along with the many other varied names for them). But for some reason, either by their own decisions or the decisions that others made for them, kids were placed into categories where very few broke out.

A person could only hope that if they hated their station, they would have some sort of epiphany during summertime to move into another classification come fall.

Knowing that, a person considering attending their reunion, might not have wanted to relive where they once were – especially if they believed they had changed their lives, their personas and become the antithesis of what they once were.

The mental, emotional, spiritual and physical toll could be very expensive. Who would want to pay such a high price to re-experience what was for some, not a very happy time. After all, who could really be happy when one would wish they were in anyone else’s shoes but their own.

Nope, thinking about reunion is a high hurdle to surmount for some and if a person wasn’t a jock, it seemed impossible. That old devil, fear, jumps back up from the depths of the soul, to taunt and tease, and rejuvenate the old emotions that threaten again to prevent connection.

Then there were the few, who straddled multiple types of student groups. They had no home in any niche, were islands unto themselves, drifting and bobbing among the sea of students looking for a place to moor their ships. Would it even be possible to find a pier among old peers?

And what of a person’s current life? Could a person measure up or would they find they still hadn’t reached their goals set so long ago? Then there’s always the stranger that accompanies everyone along their paths – nature or gravity, heredity or environment – the influences everyone experiences and have almost no control over no matter the monetary investment.

At a 30-year reunion, almost all have some sort of wrinkle somewhere, a stretch mark here, a little less hair there. They’re blemished and imperfect. Not to mention the excess baggage that appears for many in midlife.

How does a person measure up to the beauty that was youth? Even if they weren’t considered a looker, there is something to be said for tighter, more limber bodies and minds that didn’t ache and long for a nap.

No, reconnecting with the past is not for the feint of heart; it is only the courageous that venture into the wild arena of unrequited love, broken or lost friendships and unmet dreams. But for a lucky few, the payoff can be so much more than their investment or their wildest dreams.
A massive amount of bravery is needed to feel the fear and do it anyway as the adage goes.

When some of the old baggage finally resurfaces, it takes a strong will to move through the storm and come out unscathed on the other side. Hopefully a person finds a rainbow and the sun shining, exposing the weak underbellies of the monsters that climbed their ships the first time through.

For those few, who muster the strength, they can find reconnection with more than just the past. They find themselves and whom they really are inside.
And perhaps they find all they really had to fear, was fear itself.

In doing so, they discover they weren’t so different after all. That life has its ups and downs; that nearly everyone has some sort of horror story and they all just wanted to be noticed for whom they really were, down deep inside. And that despite all appearances to the contrary, it becomes apparent that everyone is the same, looking for the same things; that they really did, and do, fit in.

So too, when they all come to the Emerald City and finally meet the Great Oz, they found that they had, after all, that for which they sought long and hard.
That even though they thought otherwise, they were noticed and they mattered. The courage they never thought they had then bursts forth.

News Virginian Features Editor Gina Farthing attended the Newfield High School class of 1979 30-year reunion from July 31 to Aug. 2 in Ronkonkoma, N.Y. Her class members asked that she share the story she wrote for them with this community.