Reunions…ugh

This entry was published at least two years ago (originally posted on April 17, 2001). Since that time the information may have become outdated or my beliefs may have changed (in general, assume a more open and liberal current viewpoint). A fuller disclaimer is available.

Hmm…don’t really have a topic at the moment. I’m just sitting at work, waiting for the headset to beep in my ear, and killing time until the end of the day. Of course, the end of the day today isn’t going to be for quite a while — while I normally get off work at 4pm, I’ve got training today that’ll keep me here until 8pm. Not entirely bad, training helps and I get paid overtime for it…just means I’ve got a while before I make it home.

Of course, I’m not sure why I should be in some sort of rush to get home. One roommate works out on a rig for one of the oil companies with a 2-on/1-off rotation that he’s in the middle of right now, so he won’t be home; the other roommate works evening hours that often stretch into the late night, so I hardly see him either. Lately I get more companionship from my two pet ferrets than I do from any of the people I live with or am friends with, it seems like. Not to make it sound like it’s their fault — I’ve got a pretty busy work schedule myself — it just gets a bit grating sometimes.

I’m looking forward more and more to getting out of here and getting down to Seattle lately. Seems like every time I turn around I’ve got more reasons to leave, and less to stay. This town just gets under my skin more and more often lately — it all seems much to small, and none of it seems to fit me anymore. I can’t say whether or not Seattle will be any better, but it’s a place to start, and if I decide that it’s not the place to be, then at least it’ll be a lot easier to get someplace else from there than it is from up here.

Okay, here’s something scary, which more than likely contributes to my slightly off-kilter frame of mind. In just about two weeks, I hit my 28th birthday, and just a couple months after that, the Bartlett High School Class of ’91 has its 10-year anniversary here in town. I’m really not sure what I think of this…some days I think it would be entertaining to hit, others there’s nothing I want to do more than to stay as far away from it as possible. I wasn’t exactly overly involved in my high school years — more of a social cockroach than anything else — and, while I’ve gone through a lot of changes over the intervening years, it often makes me wonder if I really want to meet up with these people again. Some of these people I’d been going to school with since elementary school days, and yet for so much of the time it seemed to me that I didn’t exist for them — we’d be in the same classes, know the same people, but unless there was some really compelling reason to notice me, most of them very rarely did. Even today, after years of dj’ing and being something of a public figure and losing a lot of my shyness through that, I’m still a bit overly reticent when meeting people. If I’m not in the spotlight, as I am when dj’ing, then I’ll usually hang back, keep my mouth shut, and not draw attention to myself — a hangover from the days when it seemed like it was better for me not to intrude on the lives of these people that I was forced to spend seven hours out of every day with.

So is this something I really want to do — after 10 years, see these people again? I’m really not sure. Admittedly, I’m hardly the same person I was then, and, most likely, few of them are either, but it’s still a strong enough reminder of how little I liked myself, my surroundings, or my environment back then that it gives me a serious pause. Hmm…well, I guess I’ll find out as it gets closer.

In any case, this is probably more than enough of my self-indulgent, slightly morose babble. Back to the phones….