The Space/Time Continuum: How To Think About Your High School Reunion.

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For years, I never thought of what it felt like to be seventeen. Until one day, over the summer, I went to a nail salon and ran into one of my old campers. The last time I saw her, I was 17, and she was 7. As she caught me up on her life, I realized I was her age the last time we interacted. When I recognized her, for a millisecond, I became seventeen again. A time when you have no idea what you want to accomplish—the future looms over every decision. You perpetually plant seeds for tomorrow’s bounty. You have no idea how quickly life blooms.

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As we chatted and she told me her hopes and dreams for college, I remembered feeling how, at seventeen, time slowly moved. I wanted to move out of my suburban bubble and towards whatever my seventeen-year-old self-thought college would be. My camper asked me if I had any advice. I told her the world was so different than when I was in school. However, while she is in school, she should enjoy herself. As she smiled, I felt like a fraud. I told her the advice everyone gives to a nervous high school senior. I didn’t impart anything revolutionary. I didn’t give her the formula for success. I should have told her this: you have 365 days to be your age and will never have that time back. I didn’t say any of that. I gave her the generic advice and went on my way. After we said goodbye and I walked to my car, it dawned on me that if she was seventeen and I was twenty-seven, then my 10-year high school reunion this school year.

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In 2015, I was one of 35 seniors in the graduating class. As the last of the 35 teenagers walked across a stage, we subconsciously knew that this was the last time we would all be in the same place at the same time. Almost ten years later, the kids I grew up with are now adults who have mortgages and bills, productive members of society who purposely have children, and people who chose to forgo their remaining carefree twenties for stability and dependability.

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In May, some of the 35 will venture to the same parking lot we used to park in and catch up in a building that was once a construction site ten years ago. In the blink of an eye, we will all be seventeen and twenty-seven. Time will be paused for an hour and a half. We will exist in a vacuum where we are both the sum of our experiences and the potential for something more. We will forget names but not the faces of childhood memories. We will interact with people who once yielded such power to us and become mundane. We will talk to people you would be friends with as an adult. Then, we will head back to our cars and lives; time will resume. We will navigate this brave new world.

Like every high school senior who ventures to college, my camper does not know the future. At 27, I should have told her she still would not know. At 27, life feels similar to seventeen: full of potential.