Memory Road

Another Friday and finally the temperature has warmed up. Its supposed to be 9 C today so the snow should be getting to melting anytime now. The day that I am most looking forward to is that first day where there is the scent of spring in the air. I am not sure exactly what brings it out, but the aroma is distinctive and causes my spirits to soar.

The weekend I have a visitor. An old friend of mine from high school is coming into town tomorrow to see me. She lives in Calgary at the moment, but is working a lot out of Ottawa. So on Saturday she’ll be driving down to see me. We rarely, if ever, speak on the phone, and I think that the last time I saw her was in about 1997 or 1998. Its been ages!

But it got me thinking about high school a bit and the inevitable 20th high school reunion that will be coming up in a few short years. And I must admit that I am torn by that event. And its mainly as a result of my not coming out until I was in university.

In high school, I hung around with a bit of a wild crowd that was also not the brightest group of people on the planet. But we were friends for fun not for intellectual stimulation. After high school, most of them did not go to university and we eventually lost contact. I only really ever have any contact with Mel, whose coming here, and one other girlfriend who also lives in Ottawa. For the rest, its as if I now occupy a spin-off of a different series and there are no returning guest roles for sweeps-week in this show.

But there are many people that I would truly love to see again. But what for? I don’t exactly want to connect with them again so that we talk all the time. I don’t was to compare lives now? What I actually want is a People magazine Where are they now? synopsis of what has happened to them since they left the spectacle of my life. Who is fat and bald, who is happy and who is successful, and who has fallen on their face. It’s a little silly, but that is all I would want to take out of it.

But there is a price to be paid. I will have to deal with certain people whose reactions I can’t quite gauge at the moment. I have no doubt that everyone knows that I am gay now. I would be shocked if the reverse were true. But there are many people that I was very close to who I haven’t seen since that time. The girls don’t concern me, but the boys do.

And my desire to have a peak into the lives of these people requires that I allow them to look into mine.

And truth be told, what really is the point of this nostalgia. I can’t say that I truly care for any of them any longer. For many, I think that a reunion is a chance to go back and relive a little old glory. Well, my glory days don’t come from the teens. While I may be incredibly self-indulgent (and self-obsessed, of course), what would I expect from such a trip? And how would Bud deal with it? And how would my former friends deal with Bud?

It is the past. There are no loose ends to tie up. Sleeping dogs and all that…