Revive or DNR?

I missed my 10 year high school reunion last year. (Well, I wouldn't say I "missed" it . . . ) I was buying a house and we closed the weekend of the reunion.  The reunion was back in NY and I really didn't have the time to fly back home.  But the invitation did get me to thinking. 

Perhaps it's because I'm from a small town where the 60 or so people that go to Kindergarten with you graduate with you 13 years later.  There are so many cousins in the class that you wonder how the town can manage to pro-create without resorting to a (albeit infrequent) blind eye and if your family doesn't go back at least three generations in that town, then you're not to be trusted, as you are an "outsider." Regardless of the reason, after I graduated high school, I really didn't give much thought to my old classmates.  After all somethings (like penny loafers and scrunchies) should remain in the past, right?

The very premise of the high school reunion has me perplexed? I wonder whose brain-child it was to bring together a group of people that knew each other at their absolute worst. (Yeah. that sounds like fun.)  I've never encountered meaner people than I did in high school.  Perhaps social decorum doesn't guide adolescents yet, or perhaps we're painfully aware of how unsure of ourselves we are, and as a result things just sting a bit more.  I don't know.  

Add to the mix that there really isn't anything that binds the group together outside of the fact that we graduated together 10 years prior, and it seems inevitable that old habits will re-emerge.  I can't help but think there will be the dark gossip of who's the greatest failure, who gained the most weight, who's in rehab (or should be) and a sick competition from people vying for titles like most successful, most happy, most well-adjusted, most envied; it all contributes to a pretty awkward situation.  I really don't know what I'd say to the guy that called me boring during an in-class discussion, or the girl I thought was fake that ended up marrying one of my best high school pals.  I guess you're supposed to just forget about the hateful things that were said, the efforts to exclude others, the unfortunate clothing choices and focus on the field hockey games you won.  Or perhaps you're supposed to talk about what you're up to now and hope others find it interesting and can relate.  Do people fall right back into the people they were in high school?  

When I see my parents, there's always a slight regression to a time when I lived with them.  Do reunions work that way too?  Do people regress back to who they were then? If so, who would want to be that person (or with those people again).  I think for most people High School is something to be survived. I was vice-president of my class, and I don't look back fondly on the experience. Maybe the President of the class or the prom queen do, but I'm skeptical.

Given all this I think, while a blog may need reviving, when it comes to high school, one's best practice may be to squash morbid curiosity and wisely Do Not Resuscitate.