Reunions of this season of my life range from a small family reunion to a bigger high school reunion. One will be relaxing and laid back, the other could turn out to be an on-the go adventure from one activity or set of people to another.
I thought I had come to a peace in myself that I was not all that carrying of what people think of me. The bottom line being if they are superficial in "sizing" me up, I probably wouldn't want to be around them anyway. But then you look back on old pictures. All I see are happy faces of my friends, my relatives and myself and, even knowing I was not the happiest camper back in the 70's and 80's, still wonder where that person went.
We should be happy in our own skin and not have much concern for the superficial aspects of one's existence yet, reunions tend to draw all the superficiality of ourselves out. I wonder why that is. I find myself at times being a major hypocrit to my students of whom I offer the idea to "be yourself rather than what others want you to be" yet the people pleaser in me wants to just make everything okay no matter if it creates an pseudo-self or not. Rest assured, it isn't the true me. The one that finds simple happiness in researching things on the interent that will "someday" be used in my classroom, or some other geeky thing that is considered the next free way to occupy my time.
Off to get things cleaned and straightened for the first part of the reunion weeks. If I stay busy, I don't need to think. Right?
