high school reunions in strange places
i. on a remote island
this island is a three hour drive from the nearest major city, and an additional twenty minutes by boat (thirty when the waves are being disagreeable). it's a wildlife sanctuary and marine reserve that i visited primarily to see the beach thick-knee that decided to make it its home. so no, i was not expecting to run into a single person i knew (unless they were one of my birdwatching friends). when you called my name on the boat we were taking back to the main land, i didn't recognize you with your sunglasses on.
we work in the same office building so i'm used to seeing you in the mall right across the street. we were in extremely different crowds when we were still in school, so it was a surprise to me when you actually went out of your way to say hi and make small talk. i should've believed my mom when she told me that the high school social hierarchies we imposed on ourselves were total bullshit and everything would crumble come graduation. it was quite pleasant, and although we no longer make small talk when we run into each other, we still smile and wave.
i wonder if you've already ran into our other batchmates, EK and SS. i saw them at the food court fairly recently and was just as surprised when they approached me to chat the same way you did. they even made beso, something i expected even less than being approached. they don't work in the same office building as us, but they work at the one a few blocks down.
but that's at work. we both have jobs in a business district, so running into other people during lunch break isn't too strange. seeing you on a boat docked at a remote island is something else entirely.
you introduced me to your girlfriend (she was so sweet!), whose father is siblings with the guy who turned the island into a reserve. it was nice hearing her talk about how she grew up spending her summers there and the mission her family has to protect the surrounding wildlife. you talked about how you had already visited the island previously, and that spending a weekend there might become a yearly affair for you two. we talked about birdwatching and the beach thick-knee, which both you and your girlfriend knew about already and had some photos of. thank you for being a good sport about showing genuine interest in my nerdy hobby.
ii. at the bar
not so much a strange place actually; it's a bar frequented by pretty much everyone trying to make a name for themselves in the local music scene, but it's a little bit out of the way i guess. it's in the part of the city where the trash doesn't get cleaned up as much so it especially stinks after some rain (which there was) and there's barely any foot traffic so walking there late at night feels kind of scary.
you play keys for another one of our batchmates, JR. i like that JR's mom still shows up to support him like she always has. i remember that our schoolmates used to think it was strange she was there for every single school event we were ever forced to attend but seeing her again that night almost made me cry. i think we just didn't realize how important the presence of a parent actually was. i talked with JR when i wasn't talking to you, the only other person at the bar who i knew (i was chaperoning my younger brother who wanted to see his old friends perform, so 90% of the crowd were his batchmates). i admire people who are not afraid of pursuing what they want to, so hearing about him being a music event organizer and aspiring musician was really cool. i almost cried again when i opened his spotify artist profile and saw that the photo he used for his biography was with his mom. i really liked his cover of motion sickness by phoebe bridgers.
back to you. you're still in med school, but you told me that you're graduating later this year; i, of course, gave my biggest congratulations. i laughed when you asked me what it was like to have a job and income, because you still rely on allowance at the age of twenty-six -- but at least you still get summer vacations! i also really liked hearing about your girlfriend, there's just something so sweet to me about hearing how people love other people. reminiscing about high school shouldn't make me feel so old, but the truth is we graduated almost a decade ago. when the two people conversing next to us were talking about how one of them had just graduated from high school, i found it funny that we both slowly turned to each other with a horrified expression at the same time.
you decided to take it back even further to grade school and tell me that you thought my fifth grade birthday party was the best birthday party you ever attended and that it set the standard for every other birthday party that came afterwards. in the moment, i couldn't even remember what my fifth grade birthday party was (my mom later informed me that it was the amazing race-type party that she planned herself; it was a really good birthday party), but knowing that someone i had not spoken to in ages had carried that memory and feeling of it being the best birthday party ever roughly a decade and a half later made me tear up. i excused myself to go to the bathroom for this reason, lest you think i was crazy for crying all of a sudden. i didn't know it was possible to be remembered in such a pure way.
thank you, JA.
when i messaged you and JR the day after to thank you both for spending the evening with me, i felt a wave of nostalgia seeing the last messages we ever sent to each other in 2017. there was an inside joke i no longer know the context of. i almost cried again.