It's a week for nostalgia. Tomorrow we leave for a summer Kansas City vacation, just like I used to have when I was a kid. It will be fun to take my kids and Liz to the sites I looked forward to visiting each summer, as well as spending some time with the people (whom I have rarely seen in the last decade or so) that made those trips so special.
Sunday is also our 12th wedding anniversary. It's hard to believe it's been 12 years. It's also hard to believe it's only been 12 years, since it's hard to remember life without Liz. Twelve years is how long it takes to get through school, and I must say I've enjoyed these dozen years much more than those school years.
Speaking of which, chance would have it that tonight is also the day of my 20-year high school reunion. I can't attend, of course, since it's pretty impossible to get to an 8 p.m. party on a Saturday night in south Texas when you need to preach in Arkansas on Sunday morning. But I have been seeing pictures on Facebook, and, along with all the other nostalgia of the week (did I mention the KC trip winds up with a family reunion?), it's got me in a reflective mood.
I think the first thing that pops into your mind when you think about seeing people from high school is whether or not you have met the expectations that you imagine that they had for you. I think I sort of imagined ten years ago that I was "proving" something when I was able to come and "show off" Liz a little bit (I did get married!). And I was a little sheepish about my weight gain.
So looking back, I'm happy to realize that, although I've been packing it on lately, I'm no fatter than I was ten years ago. And we've added three impossibly adorable kids to the family since then. But I also remember the plans I told people about back then, and I've lived to see them altered, crushed, re-shaped, and re-made over the past decade.
I've also come to realize that these thoughts I've imagined in others are just my own insecurities and expectations reflected back to me. Because my high school social circle was small and I've been removed from that area since that time, I'm firmly in the category of "Who?" or "Oh yeah, I guess I remember him" for 98% of the people in my class. The question really is whether I feel good about my life right now, and my definition of success has undergone a radical overhaul over the past couple of decades.
