I was contacted the other day by two old schoolfriends who are planning a high school reunion for our class. I was thrilled to hear from them both. The reunion will be in Cape Town in mid September. They have set up a WhatsApp group, and old friends have been checking in from every continent except Antarctica! 'So good to "hear" their voices after all these years.
From a bunch of convent girls, many of my old friends have grown up to be incredibly free-spirited people. Some have chosen paths that might have been considered transgressive back when we were at school. Sadly, some have passed away, and some have faded away and none of us is able to find them.
High school was not a happy time in my life. All I wanted at the time was to hide away from the world. My schoolfriends seemed happy, carefree, and exuberant, for the most part, and I watched their lives as though I were watching a movie -- an interested observer of something remote and surreal. Now, after several decades of living with confidence and dignity, I feel I can join in their joyful, light-hearted chatter and enter their circle as one annointed to feeling welcomed and valued.
I hope to be able to attend. I won't go there to slay old demons but to rediscover a part of myself that once felt trampled. I want to liberate the teenaged girl that I was and to allow her to be as frivolous, lively, and boisterous as every happy teenager should be.
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