On What I Realized after Attending My College Reunion

• We look older than we feel.
• In late midlife, people want to write about their stories not just talk about them.
• I feel less nostalgic about the past than I was when I was closer to it.
• Reunions are easier without the presence of one’s spouse.
• Spouses generally don’t care for college reunions.
• No one understands the kind of work I do for a living.
• Many of us are less interested in talking about our work than we used to be.
• I really am an introvert--three days of solid talking and listening has exhausted me!
• Your true friends are the ones you can pick up with where you left off.
• People’s personalities don’t change over time, though some of the edges are softened.
• Death of loved ones is a common denominator for all of us.
• Folk songs from the 60s/early 70s were far superior to what passes today for folk music.
• Peggy Seegar is a true talent and a wonderful entertainer.
• Some people will always be sad.
• Some people will always be angry.
• Some people are dauntingly accomplished.
• Some people have an astonishing capacity to remember.
• Some people can get everyone to listen to them.
• Some people will never come to reunions.
• Most people who seemed to be from another world all those years ago are really very nice.
• Some people in our cohort are grandparents—how can that be?
• Buildings on college campuses should “be in conversation with each other.”
• College dorms are soulless places without students.
• The people who knew you when you were young know you in a way that no one else can know you.
• I am not the only one who saved all our college newspapers, but I do need to downsize!
• Time is whizzing by—it seems like I just attended my last five-year reunion.
• We attended college at an extraordinary time.
• The events—both internal at our college and external in the world--of that extraordinary time bind us together in a special way.
• Although we meant it at the time, we will not follow up on most of those promises to make contact with the people with whom we do not already have contact.
• Most of us will be dead or too infirmed to come to our 70th reunion.