Fifty Years Today

I hope it's accurate, because I was thinking it was a few days later in the month but a classmate posted on facebook that tonight is the night that we graduated from high school fifty years ago. 

One of those milestones in life. 

I recall in the last month or two before this evening in 1974, not wanting it to arrive. Eleven years looking forward to summer vacation and now I didn't want the summer months to come. 

It's always been a bittersweet memory for me. Things suddenly wouldn't be the same any longer. Friends all about to go out in different directions in their life journeys. Being shy, I was just starting to feel comfortable and a part of things .... and then it was over. A few of those friends, I had further contact with in the days and years beyond that evening but many, I'd never see again.  

One or two, I got to know a little bit many years later. I even admitted to one that I had a crush on her back then in whatever class it was we shared. (I think it was World History but it may have been English, and then again, I'm probably wrong about both.)

There was also a smaller subgroup of us who had been together from our beginnings in Catholic school, grade one. 

The list of those who didn't make it to this day seems lengthy. It's funny but even those I didn't get to know; it feels like I knew them well when I heard of their passing.

A visual has always remained of that evening. Of standing before a bonfire at a classmate's post-graduation party, drinking beer for the first time. After a while it began to taste like water. Apparently crossing the line between sober and drunk and the memories of the evening becoming less clear.

None of us knew in that moment what was ahead. And it feels sometimes like I blinked my eyes and here I am .... here we all are .... fifty years later. Half a century later. It's a cliche and while I'll refrain from saying "yesterday," it really feels like it was just a short time ago. 

A day or two afterwards, I drove over to the coast alone. Spending a day or two wandering, eating fish & chips and saltwater taffy, walking in sand, pondering life and changes while the ocean eavesdropped and playing a round or two of golf. I don't recall but I may have shed a few tears. I was struggling with all the emotions. I came back to rumors that I had ran away from home. I guess I didn't tell anyone besides my parents that I needed time alone. We didn't have cell phones then .... probably a good thing.