Reunion Redux

Way back at the end of last summer, I told you about a little endeavor I was embarking on. Serving on a committee for the University of Northern Iowa to gather all Theatre alumni for a huge event.

It was finally this weekend. And I can't even wrap my brain around how great it all was. It was the largest alumni event of the entire year at UNI, which was pretty cool. I didn't hear the exact headcount but there were over 200 people there, starting with alumni who graduated in the 40s on up to grads who just finished last year. That's pretty cool, to have 60-plus years of people who have a common bond like that.

We had a jam packed itinerary, a cocktail party meet-and-greet thing on Friday night where there were people I haven't seen in almost 14 years. There are a handful of my former classmates where we have done a better job keeping up with each other's lives, and many of them were there.

I have a hard time relating how different my college experience was from many other people, being in a small department where you know every single other person in your classes. You work on half a dozen shows each year for hours and weeks on end and practically live in the theatre building, you end up being part of each other's grades for classes as you perform in acting and directing scenes for your classmates, have parts in someone's senior recital, and maybe at some point people date each other because somebody they tried dating over in the Science department thought dating an actor was just too strange. And if you don't date, well, what happened was all those people ended up being like brothers and sisters, for better or worse. Your family. Period.

As we wandered and reflected on those "remember when" moments, it felt like a warm hug. So much love from these people who lived, loved, worked, cried, played and celebrated life with me during a time when we were all trying desperately to figure out what we wanted to be when we grew up, but mostly, we were just trying to figure out who we were. Sometimes that's an emotional journey, it's good to have some friends help along the way.

I remember being a freshman and going to the first round of auditions for that semester's shows and being scared to death of all the upperclassmen and how talented they were and how I hoped somebody would notice me. Then I remember after my time of getting big parts, medium parts, and small parts, eventually being a senior myself and how the new freshman looked scared to death to be in a place where their talent would be under constant scrutiny.

But this weekend there was a great representation of all those people who were ahead of me and behind me at school and we had a great time talking about our lives up to now. So many people that did not go into Theatre professionally for whatever reason, well, it's interesting how much all the things they learned still benefit their lives. Like me. I don't have a "career" in theatre, but I do still get work. And I am, I hope, passing on a deep love for the arts to my children.

I'm not going to lie, it was nice to hear from people that I look "exactly the same". A few more pounds and a few more wrinkles but these are actors we're talking about and I adore their convincing lies in favor of the hard core ego boost I got from it.

I'd love to do this more often. I hope we could. It seems a reasonable thing to have a regular rotation of reunions for college, in so many ways it was a much more life changing time frame than high school.

I can't explain anything else about it except this electric yet warm and squishy cushion of love all around me from the reconnections of those short three days. I miss everyone already. I wish I could go back in a time machine and do college all over again, but only if all the same people will be there. Because if I should live to be a very old woman, I will never forget them...