ALL the Feels: Reflecting on My 30th High School Reunion
The more we welcome the fullness of the human experience, the more fully, and vibrantly alive we become
Hello Beautiful Beings!
Remember Dairy Queen’s “Full Meal Deal”? Going to my thirtieth high school reunion, was: The Full Human Experience. Over the three-plus hours I spent (re)connecting with my former classmates, I experienced joy, anxiety, gratitude, terror, bliss, shame, mirth, awkwardness, grace, angst, welcome, stress, some genuine heart-to-heart communion, and more. It was all the things!
Life is full of amazingness and awfulness. Yet, somehow, it’s still beautiful anyway!
More than most, I am predisposed to avoid and ignore the “negative” emotions. But the thing is, the more we welcome and embrace ALL the flavors of life, the more beautiful it all becomes. Why? Well, let’s stay on the high school theme. I think of the ways students fell into different cliques and categories during that time. With varying degrees of overlap, there were cool kids, smart kids, geeks, jocks, Pacific Islanders, trend setters, rule breakers, band kids, disabled kids, and more.
(I tried to capture some of my emotions from the reunion in the pics here)
Now, while various pressures push us to value some of those categories over others, the truth is: Everyone belongs, and is an important part of the human family. What is more, each of us as individuals, has diversity and multiplicity within us. And, the more we radically see, welcome, and embrace this, the more we thrive individually and communally.
Take me, for instance. I’m a man who is sensitive, likes to cook, is terrible at handyman stuff, loves writing, enjoys cuddling, wants to talk things through, digs a good rom-com, and is all-around not great at many “manly” duties. While I spent years hating and shaming the many parts of me that weren’t manly enough, that only led to hurt and suffering.
Each of us is a once in the history of ever unique miracle. And, the radical acceptance and love of others, and myself, as we are, has been the key that’s unlocked heaven on earth.
So, with all of this—and more—floating around in my mind, I went to my reunion. As I left the car and walked into the building, I could feel the weight of having not seen anyone who’d be there, in-person, since our tenth reunion. Fortunately, Mary was the first who saw me. She has always been a gem of a person. Wrapping me in a big hug, her welcome put my anxious mind at ease. Doesn’t being welcomed well, make all the difference in the world?
While reconnecting with Mary was easy like Sunday morning, that wasn’t always the case. A time or two, I could tell the other person was looking for an excuse to end our conversation and move on … not that I wasn’t guilty of that too! Some conversations seemed forced, the ones where it’s hard to get beneath the surface and discover: How are you really doing?
I definitely was not in the popular group in high school. I share that, because there were instances where “young Lang”—the teenage me who wanted nothing more than to be embraced as a “cool kid”—felt the shame and awkwardness of being on the outside looking in. Standing alone on the side of the room for a couple/few minutes, after someone had ended our chat, brought up A LOT inside me. So, I decided to welcome the resultant feelings of exclusion, weirdness, smallness, and being less than, with kindness, curiosity, and understanding.
Welcoming creates wellness.
Much like how Mary’s welcome soothed my anxiety; greeting and receiving the feels I prefer to avoid, put their “minds” at ease, allowing them to quickly pass. That said, it was a little harder to forgive myself for getting Ken’s name wrong.
“Do you remember me?” he said, as I walked by on my way to leave. “Oh yeah,” I replied somewhat distracted, as I was looking for a couple of people to say goodbye to, “You’re Ernie, right?”
“No, I’m Ken. But, that’s okay,” he smiled, “we look enough alike that people have confused us forever.” Thank you for the grace, Ken!
There were several deep and meaningful moments. These came in the form of hugs (you know, the kind you can get lost in), heart-to-heart conversations, sharing the tender parts of our stories, and telling each other our hopes and dreams. These times I got to cherish with Mary, Leah, Kate, and Reggie, for instance, stand out in my heart as beautiful moments of kindred spirits communing. I am grateful.
The way reunion brought up the full human experience, and blessed me deeply as a result, brings to mind something I just heard about Bhutan, a small country in the Himalayas. Its people are some of the happiest in the world. You know how many countries measure their success by their GNP (Gross National Income)? Bhutan measures its Gross National Happiness! I bring that up because a key reason why they are so glad, is because they purposefully and collectively choose to think about death multiple times a day. In other words: The more we embrace the totality of the human experience (like my reunion was), the brighter and more beautiful our lives become!
That said, I LOVE to hear your thoughts, experiences, questions, and takeaways. Please share below.
Hugs & Love,
Lang (aka “Dr. Love”)
I’m sure you made a lot of people feel the same way mari made you feel. Keep embracing the totality, brother.