It's Been 10 Years

What to wear? My new shimmery fuchsia top with skinny black pants and suede boots?No, too much. A ruffly black shirt, dark jeans, the same suede boots and a thin, turquoise-and-silver necklace seemed more casually cool. As my friend Amanda and I drove up to the hotel, a small butterfly grew in my stomach. Who is actually going to be here?
I wasn't really sure whether to go to the reunion. In fact, I might have not gone at all if I hadn't had a chance run-in with Amanda earlier that week who gave me the specifics and raised my curiosity. Where have people really been up to these last 10 years? (honestly, I knew a fair amount about the generalities...the advent of facebook answered a lot of those questions. But learning how people became their adult selves, how they morphed out of high school awkwardness requires face-to-face interaction). But once Amanda and I hopped out of the car, we ran into some people we knew, people we were excited to see, and my butterfly disappeared. I was sipping cocktails, fielding questions about my nuptials (like I said, facebook gives you plenty of basics from which to form a chit-chat), updating people on and remembering old times. I was learning about my former classmates' jobs and love lives (and in a few cases, children), and slowly realized that I wasn't in high school anymore. I wasn't even close. Ten years is a while. But as I came to terms with this closed part of my life, I also felt excited for the many chapters left to open.