Tonight is the night...

when my classmates will gather for our 30th high school reunion. I'll not be there.

There's a lady at my parish who's ill and needs to be visited, and people, perhaps, to see on the way down to LaCrosse. There are services to tend to and apparently a neighbor who's put their fence too far on to church property. The stuff of life. Real life.

High school is like a dream, a far away three years that occasionally reaches out to touch you but for the most part is lost in the mists. In the old days, perhaps, the people you went to high school with were also the people you grew up with, childhood friends from a hometown you remember but now in these mobile days this seems to be more rare. High school is a stop on the way, and the relationships that matter are more often to be found outside its doors in whatever life lies ahead.

The truth is that I live less than a half hour from my high school but its a world of time, places, and experiences away. I care for those people who were with me in those days, but I don't long for them or that time. I wish them well, and pray for them often, but my life is now and any nostalgia is only about what could have been and not what was. My best days are now, always have been.

So, if somehow a member of the Mahtomedi High School class of 79 stumbles onto this blog, know that I wish you all the best and my prayers and hope are that life has been good and kind to you. Be well. Be blessed. May you find every happiness and more than that may you always know God. But tonight I'll be at Vespers with whoever comes through the door. I need to be there for more reasons than you can possibly imagine but I won't forget you either.

Rip em up, tear em up, give em hell Zephyrs...