Adventures in Oddity

So... this weekend is my high school ten-year reunion, that purveyor of bittersweet remembrance, harbinger of self-doubt. How surreal. I suspect somebody's math is off, 'cause I really don't feel like someone who should be attending a ten-year anything. I have mostly made peace with the standard, cliché insecurities that arise from these events. But here's what I dread most about this weekend:

I am a different person than I was ten or twelve years ago. Not unrecognizable, but I think I am now a gentler, more compassionate person. I have been, at times in my life, judgmental, unyielding, and self-righteous. But most of the people I knew in high school haven't been with me on the journey from there to here and I'm afraid of people looking at me, seeing that same Melanie. Being treated as that person. And even more, I'm afraid of becoming that person while I am reunion-izing. This whole train of thought has made me aware of the need to make allowances for change in the people I remember, some fondly and some less-than-fondly.

Thank God for transformation.