Reuniting

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If I was cool enough to play electric guitar really well and was able to pick any name in the world for my band, I would might choose "Martin Dugard and the Unforgiven" or "Fred Sherbet and the Men of Steel." But certainly not "South Coast Party Machine."

Women in their 40s, as a rule, take much better care of themselves than men of the same age.

Put a group of high school friends together, and no matter what their age, they will regress to high school behavior and social order.

Styx wasn't really such a bad band, after all, "Babe" notwithstanding. In fact, "Suite Madama Blue" really rocks.

These are the sorts of thoughts a grown man has while standing alone in a crowded hotel suite at 2 a.m. on a Saturday night, enduring the utter isolation of attending his wife's high school reunion. I am not good at looking content when I am bored at such events. And though I try to look pleasant, I somehow look angry instead. This leads to my wife's former classmates -- a good number of whom wore something low and black and clingy -- gently placing a hand on my shoulder and inquiring as to my well being. Not a bad thing, mind you. Just part of the bizarre scene that happens with reunions. I don't often carry a notebook when I'm not covering an event, but I truly wish I'd carried one at that reunion. I could have gathered enough content to write a novella.

Before I launch into a description of that surreal evening, let me tell you why it fits into this space. First, I've got the liberty to write pretty much what I want. Second, I defy anyone to observe a reunion from the outside looking in without having an inner monologue about aging, fitness, happiness, and our ingrained need to be accepted by our peers. It just can't be done. And those themes apply to endurance athletes as much as anyone else out there. We practically live them on an hourly basis.

OK, so it all started like this: My wife offered me an out. I didn't have to attend her high school reunion, because she remembers how bored myself and all the other spouses were at the last one, ten years back. Don't be silly, I said, I WANT to go. I thought this was a rather benevolent act, and I didn't even pout when she made me change out of my khakis and put on a suit and tie. But she was right. Within ten minutes of arriving, I was just that appendage to be introduced. I slipped off to the bar without being noticed, where I caught the final quarter of the Miami-Florida game with a pint of something cold and amber in my hand. Alas, those were the=2 0best 45 minutes of the night. I was reined in and marched back to the hotel ballroom for dinner, where I was promptly abandoned for a batch of old acquaintances. Dinner was spent texting my son back east at college, making mental judgements about those in attendance (I was honestly floored to find out that the woman I'd cattily dismissed as a pole dancer actually WAS a pole dancer), and trying not to look at my watch. Things got better when I connected with a couple spouses, and we began making those catty statements out loud. Many of these were directed at South Coast Party Machine, a fairly decent cover band that was underamplified and underappreciated all evening long. Perhaps if they'd only had a decent name...

Anyway, the action moved upstairs to a suite, where the action continued until 2 a.m. I found myself amazed by how good some people look, and how much some people of the exact same age have let themselves go. And then I began to think about how much I let myself go sometimes, falling into a cave while writing books and become a larger and less mobile version of myself. But most of all, at the end of the night, I found myself wanting to try a little harder to be the best version of myself that I could, mentally, spiritually, and emotionally. I noticed that a lot of the women had spent months getting in shape for that night, and that many of the men had spent a few good hours doing the same thing. The point was to be their best for t heir old friends to show that they'd done alright in life, and that they weren't losers. I want to start living like that every day. I want to be less cynical, and a little more accepting. I want to be more disciplined about the things that matter and more forgiving about the things that don't. And I want to stay on top of things, health-wise, because I don't want to be one of those guys who wakes up one morning, looks at his body in the mirror, and just gives up and lets himself go. I sort of live like that right now, so the battle is half won. But it would be nice to be more consistent.

Got home much later than usual. Slept in much later than usual. That reunion stayed with me, even the part about Styx. It was nice to see one of life's checkpoints so vividly displayed, and to get perspective on what has passed and look forward to what is to come.

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