And in the beginning...

This will be the summer of 2009. Since I graduated high school in 1989, this is also the year of our 20 year reunion.
I have no idea what that means.
Maybe (maybe not) I would have a better idea if I had gone to the reunion 10 years ago. I do know that I have 2 older sisters and an older brother who have seen this milestone come and go. Maybe they can help.
I also know a lot of psychology goes into this mess. Specifically, the simplest part of the human brain processes life differently than we think we think. First, it remembers everything, but only has everything filed under either good or bad. Second, it has no concept of time and tries to process all of those past and present memories as if here and now.
So, that is why you can be talking to a middle aged adult like me, and suddenly they start talking and acting like a child. They can easily jump in and out of this state all the while oblivious to any of it.
Fascinating as all of that can be, especially when you start understanding the impacts of this on dating and marriage, it really doesn't help me understand what I'm trying to understand about this reunion.
What I think it means is that I will see a crowd of familiar faces that will have grown the bodies of middle aged men and women. My brain will be confused, wanting to continue old conversations and work out old relationship issues. But, I'll also be flooded with new information that explains all that has happened to everyone in the last 20 years, including to myself.
How do you begin to explain what has happened in the last 20 years? For one thing, I don't remember it very well. Second, I pretty sure what I do remember is too boring. But what really concerns me is how to explain the stuff I can't explain, that I have conveniently forgotten or pushed aside in favor of the mundane and simpler day to day stuff.
I still haven't decided if it will bother me more if someone does ask than if they don't.
I really never figured out how to talk to these people 20 years ago. So (again with the psychology) what I expect will happen is everyone will recoil back into the same groups we were in 20 years ago and I'll never really meet them. So why have a reunion at all? Given, it is a chance to see those familiar faces on unfamiliar bodies, for what that is worth, even if the person is still a stranger after all.