A Reunion With Myself

There are times in my life I want to revisit.

I call them personal reunions: memories I want to return to, not because they were perfect, but because they still hold something I can’t quite name. Joy, embarrassment, laughter, sadness, anger. Sometimes all of it at once.

Maybe what I want to reexperience is innocence. Maybe it is connection. Maybe it is simply the surprise of being young and unaware that one ordinary moment would someday become a place I longed to visit again.

I woke today thinking of myself at seventeen, a naïve kid sitting at a round dinner table, unsure how to act, surrounded by other young women who appeared comfortable and confident. I tried to look as if I knew what was expected, but it was a charade.

I had no idea how to behave at an all-girls “finishing” school. What, exactly, was I supposed to be finishing? And how on earth was one expected to eat fried chicken with a knife and fork?

The other seven girls at the table didn’t seem confused. Plates were passed by the table hostess. Conversation was quiet. No one appeared puzzled by the mysterious procedures involved in requesting the saltshaker.

How complicated could dinner be? At home, meals were where we laughed, told jokes, caught up, complained, explained, explored, learned, and shared. But this was different. This was food consumption with rules. Rituals. Timing. Posture. Patience.

You didn’t gobble down dinner and dash off to play rehearsal or homework. You didn’t leave when you were finished. You waited until everyone was finished and the hostess dismissed the table as a group.

So why would I want to return to such an awkward moment? Maybe because I want to step back into that room and sit beside the girl I was. I want to feel what she felt, then laugh with her a little. I want to tell her she would survive the saltshaker, the fried chicken, and the terrifying etiquette of strangers.

Would I still feel self-conscious? Or would I finally see the absurdity, the innocence, and the comedy of it all?

I realize now I have a lifetime of memories, some faded by time, some tucked into the back closets of my mind. Each one holds a piece of me, a small reminder that I was there, I lived it, I felt it.

And sometimes, that is reason enough to return.

Little 

Voice