I’ve recently come back from a reunion with a group of women who were my pledge class sorority sisters. It’s been a long time since our college days, but this is now our third get-together in the last six years, and the enthusiasm for them doesn’t seem to be waning. Each time, some 15-20 of the original 25 show up.
Oddly enough, this year also witnessed a reuniting of my husband’s college friends, who as a group (22, including spouses) have been committed to gathering every other year for the past seven years. So what is it that has us now compulsively revisiting those who knew us when?
Part of it, of course, is that we finally have the time. The kids are grown, we’re at least semi-retired from work, and if we manage the venue well enough, it’s a pretty cheap getaway. Yet it’s the deeper desire – to revisit who we were when we were still raw and unformed, to recognize and reflect on the distances we’ve traveled, to recast ourselves in the light of maturity – that I think exerts the real pull.
