PETER PAN . . .
Remember when you were, say, six or seven years old? There you were, doddering along on your little banana-seat bicycle, perhaps with ribbons flying out of each handle and interwoven through the tire spokes. Watching those big bad teenagers -- the
fifteen-year olds -- whiz back and forth past you on their ten-speed bikes, the kinds that made that cool
click-click-click noise as they slowed down when they deigned to say "hey, what's up" to you. And all you could think was "I can't wait to grow up. I can't wait to be fifteen and have a cool grown-up ten-speed bike that looks sleek and awesome even
without ribbons."
And then, BAM! Here you are, approaching thirty and wishing you were twenty-two again. What is up with that?
At the end of every February, my old musical comedy troupe at my law school alma mater gets together for a reunion of sorts. They watch the Saturday night show of the annual production, then spend the rest of the night at the cast party drinking and inhaling all manner of things. They wake up -- or remain awake -- on Sunday morning, thinking that that was the best time they've had in a long time, and counting the days until the next reunion weekend.
In the months and weeks preceding the reunion, our inboxes fill with messages from random troupe alumni -- some are people I've never even met, and at this point, are several years younger than I -- extolling the virtues of a weekend-long drunk-fest, dredging up old dirty jokes, referencing things which confuse me for I can no longer tell if they are my memories, or memories implanted in me by younger Follies folk. I sort of know what they're talking about. Lord, my law school days were one big mish-mash of hard-core studying until the wee hours of the morning, chain-smoking Marlboro Lights, and imbibing every alcoholic concoction known to man (although cranberry-and-Absolut were largely my drink of choice until I spilled an entire tumblerful on myself and permanently stained a good pair of jeans). I laughed at the dirty jokes, and came up with some of my own, thank you very much. I stayed out just as late, emoted just as dramatically and flung myself about with careless abandon just as much as the next castmember.
But I kind of grew out of it. Sure, I love the taste of a good non-cheap cheap cigarette now and then. And sometimes, my tension can only be eased by a few sips of a glass of red wine, a green-apple martini, a Black Russian, or a quick shot of ice-cold Grey Goose. I still act like a crazy fool, living it up and laughing and screaming when necessary. I haven't been dancing in ages, but should the right opportunity arise, I'm ready to be unleashed. But I don't totally comprehend my fellow alums' persistent need to recreate the hey-days of the party life. I just don't get it.
Is it that they really
enjoyed those days? I mean, we were so stressed out all the time with our schoolwork, and the additional pressure of having to write, direct, produce, finance and stage a 2.5-hour-long musical comedy in a month and a half ... sure, perhaps that merited an extra drink or two. But was it really
fun to get that sloppy all the time? In hindsight, not to me. It was a temporary balm -- and, if I'm really honest with myself -- a way to fit in, to succumb to the peer pressure. For yes, even among twenty-somethings, there is peer pressure. But this temporary balm was gross! Waking up headachey and pukey with that nasty stale taste of cigarette in your mouth, and your clothes reeking to high heaven ... who really
likes that?
Is it that their lives right now are
so stressful that a weekend of partying like college kids is really the only thing that will give them release? Is it that they don't know that the sight of thirty-somethings reveling like that is embarrassing and pathetic-looking, especially to younger observers? Is it that they have nothing else fun and exciting in their lives, so they have to relive days from five, six, seven years ago in order to experience a little bit of a thrill? Or more likely, is it that they expect to feel pressured to drink and party hard, and so they preempt the pressure by blustering about it instead?
Or, most horrifically, is it that they are
actually stuck in the past and can't get out? Maybe the men still feel like they have to drink everyone else under the table in order to be real men. Maybe the women still feel like they have to keep up in order to be cool. Maybe they cling to the "fun" they had, back in the day, and want that so badly that they can't let themselves chill out and be who they are now -- adults. Maybe they think their glory days have passed them by, and the only thing keeping them alive as a shell of their old, fun, relaxed selves is that one weekend in late February.
I don't know. I confess I'm a coward -- I haven't been to a reunion since the first one I attended the year after I graduated. I can't relate. I can't keep up. I can't handle people asking me why I'm not drinking more than one beer. I can't stand the stink of pot. I don't want to tell people that my life is great when I'm completely sober, and that I really enjoy the time I have to myself in the evenings when I sit back with a glass of wine and a good book, or a cup of tea and my knitting project. I don't want them to know that crude dirty jokes make me cringe. I don't want to say to them "we're not really friends, we never were, and this is all fakey-fakey and only exists because you're drunk off your rocker."
I'm not attending this year either. I don't have the time, nor the extra money, to head up north. I don't have the energy to ward off peer pressure that shouldn't even exist, or to sustain fake friendships that were always temporary in my mind anyway. I have such excellent memories of Follies and the experiences I had those three years with those people, and I would hate to tarnish those recollections with my own behavior -- either joining the pack, or withdrawing in a corner. I read their emails now -- just two weeks to go before the big event -- and I'm sort of sad that I'm on the outside, even though I know I've put myself there. I'm sort of bemused at the continued rehashing of jokes. I'm sort of sad for them, especially the lady who is three-months pregnant and jokingly wondering if she really
can't have a shot of tequila. I'm sort of happy that they're there for each other and seemingly all in the same place in life. I'm sort of -- a tiny bit -- wishing I was there, too. But I'm also sort of glad that I am where I am, how old (or young) I am, how toxin-free I am, and I'm just longing to open a bottle of wine and start my next baby blanket.
