More than you'll ever need to know about my 20-year High School Reunion
Fear, friends, flashbacks and french fries.
A reminder that I record all my Substacks, so you can listen to them by pressing play above if you don’t feel like reading.
It popped up randomly on my Facebook several months ago, probably June, an announcement I hadn’t thought about and was not expecting. I pinched my screen, zooming in on the details. “Holy Moly,” I thought. It has been 20 years since I’ve graduated from White Knoll High School, and they are having a reunion!! It was happening in September, and immediately I wanted to go.
I have lived in Australia for the last 15 years, and I try to get back to the US at least once a year. The reunion lined up well with Americanafest and the Powwow both of which I planned to go to for this year’s trip. I was gonna go! I was going to do it.
As soon as I booked my reunion ticket, a wave of unexpected fear washed over me that would proceed to tease me through July, August and September. Every time I thought of my high school reunion, the inexplicable terror returned.
People told me they actually really enjoyed going to their high school reunions. One colleague reminded me of the 30 Rock Episode where Liz Lemon returns and realizes she was actually the bully! Imagine if this was the case with me?!
The months rolled on, I arrived in America in late August, distances were travelled, and on Saturday morning at 1am on September 20th, my Amtrak Train arrived in Columbia SC from Richmond, Virginia. I caught an Uber from the train station and checked into my room where I proceeded to barely sleep. Y’all, I was scared. I called my boyfriend and told him I was nervous, and he joked that he was going to book me a limo or a helicopter to arrive in, ha! I cannot imagine anything worse!
The next day I woke up and wandered out of my hotel room into a massive market on Main Street which I later learned was the Soda City Market. It was thriving. I felt happy to be back as I walked through crowds of people, every age, skin color and size. It felt lively, naturally diverse and better than any market I remember growing up.
“Man,” I thought, “Columbia is better than it used to be.” Fresh produce, live music, food from every nation, flowers, crafts, food trucks, veteran-owned booze popsicles, everything was available for sale.
I kept walking and ended up in front of the State House where there was an International Peace Day event happening with various activist-y groups. People were advocating for peace, Palestine and Food Not Bombs. I hung out and chatted to a few people and remembered how my friend Ivey and I would have definitely been involved in an event like this 20 years ago when we both lived here. I remembered helping out with Food Not Bombs at 16 and how my Latin teacher Mr. Letts used to be involved with it. I looked around for him but he wasn’t there.
The sun was a cruel halo throughout the morning. Before this trip I had forgotten the sweltering humidity in this part of the world. No fall weather here! I strolled into CVS where I found myself buying wine, partially because isn’t it great you can buy wine before midday at a drugstore in America, but also because, well, maybe I might need it.
I went back to my hotel room to wait anxiously. I tried to sleep and failed, had a shower, put on my dress, and messaged friends. I shampooed my hair about three times and then blow-dried it too. Something about coming back to this part of my life reminds me that people judge you on how you look, a lot. I used to worry about the fact that my hair is perpetually greasy and somewhere down the line I guess I quit caring/gave up. But if there was ever a time to be aware of my hair, it was tonight. Early in the afternoon a thunderstorm hit and in my dramatic mind I cultivated this as a dark omen for what lay ahead, a sign that perhaps I shouldn’t go. I gloomily watched puddles pool on the sidewalks below my room and thought to myself, “Alex, WTF is wrong with you?!“
Of course I was going to go! I had come this far! At around 4:30pm I had a rather large glass of rose and at 5:30 my Uber driver arrived, a nice man named Kelly who has lived in this town his whole life and has teenage children. We talked a lot in the car, he had a lovely southern accent and had been waiting his whole life to move away and now that his kids are old enough he’s leaving SC and moving to Colorado! He was a godsend, soothing my nerves and telling me that I looked great and that everyone was going to be happy to see me. He dropped me off at The Farm, a cute little property in Lexington. I gingerly approached my old classmates.
Immediately I saw people I recognized and squealed, saying their first and last name! I saw another friend who I didn’t recognize until he introduced himself and then of course I realized who he was. People had married and changed their last names. Some couples from high school were still together. Plenty of people I’d wondered if I’d run into were nowhere to be found.
It was wild. If you are a young person reading this, the prospect of a high school reunion doesn’t feel that strange or off the wall, but let me assure you, seeing people you grew up with for 20 years again after another 20 years is a mind f*ck like no drug I’ve ever taken. Fifteen minutes into the night my fear had transformed into wonder, but my heart rate didn’t return to normal for 48 hours.
From that point on it was one whirlwind of chatting with one person after another. People told me where they were living and what they were doing and I immediately forgot everything they said. The boy I had my first kiss with at Three Fountains Skating Rink at the age of 11 is now happily married to his high school sweetheart with kids. It was great to chat with him and his wonderful wife, but I do imagine him thinking as he talked to me, “dodged a bullet with that one.”
I had promised myself that I was going to refrain from talking politics with anyone because a lot of people I grew up with have different political alignments to me, but within five minutes I had found the libs and the gays and was loudly spouting off opinions the EXACT same way I used to 20 years ago.
A baseball player reminded me that I wrote in his yearbook that we would sleep together someday. Then I had flashbacks of other comments I wrote in yearbooks. Ah yes, not only did I solicit sex, but I regularly discussed wanting to find and smoke weed with others, with apologies to any previous teachers or folks from New Hope Christiaan Fellowship reading this.
One of the popular baseball players invited everyone there to the after party at his place down the road.
As many people commented on my bangs as they did the fact that I lived in Australia, lol. I told people about my boyfriend back in Australia and how we’ve been together for over ten years, but we’re also very independent. I wish he could have been there with me though.
We’re all so different, evolved and grown up, but some things feel exactly the same.
I imagined how couples would discuss me on the ride home based on their personalities and political leanings.
Some would say “Alex Morris is doing creative things in Australia, that’s cool, good for her! Maybe we can go visit.”
Others might say, “Alex Morris that crazy communist lefty slut! I’m not surprised she left America and is living in sin with her boyfriend. Maybe we should put her on our church’s prayer list.”
Lol, Am I being dramatic?! Moi??!!!!
Over and over again I asked people about their lives and told them about mine. It was information overload. When we all sat down to eat a few people came up to tell stories about memories. Our lovely class president who organised the event said some wonderful words about everyone’s accomplishments. I got noted as the person who came the furthest and I took a silly bow. People noticed that my accent had changed, and that felt strange. I was happy to entertain, but unhappy to feel like I can’t control how I sound.
One person stated that there were no cliques and everyone at White Knoll High School was treated equally. While it’s awesome some folks remember it that way, after chatting with several people in the days to follow, I can confirm some people definitely felt like we had cliques.
I luckily got along with everyone in high school, but I definitely felt a hierarchy of cool among the people around me. Overall it was a great high school experience and the majority of us got along. We had the preps, there were the jocks, there were the cheerleaders, the “freaks” etc, there were the vocal and active Christian kids, there were the rednecks, and probably more subgroups I didn’t keep up with.
As a teenager I was able to move between different cliques. As I said to someone that night, my friends were in drama, the “freaks” and the musicians, but I kissed a few baseball players and country boys too.
The night went on but soon they were doing last call for drinks. At 9pm I jumped in an Uber with some friends and we headed to a nearby bar called LJs. After catching up even more with people from my childhood there, I caught an Uber home at midnight. No, I did not make it to the aforementioned house party. I’m told it was entertaining.
In the haziness of LJs late evening, I managed to make plans to have Sunday brunch with a girlfriend, but I confess I have had better Sunday mornings. The next morning I laid in bed and debated cancelling. Everything in me was saying “Alex, you idiot, you are in no place to do anything this morning,” but also I had travelled five million miles to reconnect with people. Now was not the time to let a hangover kick my ass.
We were meeting at 11, and at 10:45 I summoned it in myself to call an Uber. It would have been a beautiful stroll to the Gourmet Shop from my hotel room, but it was not to be. When I arrived I realized I wasn’t just meeting my friend Rachel, but also Macey and Ashley who were at the reunion! I was happy to see them all, but conscious of my delicate condition. As luck would have it, Ashley is a nurse and happened to have miracle nausea drugs on her! Hooray! Brunch progressed and the hangxiety dissipated. I began to feel better and maybe even had a mimosa
We sat and talked for hours. I was fascinated at how well we got along and how many interesting stories we had to tell. From my shaky arrival, we went to catch up on twenty years worth of gossip, which included last night’s afterparty. I learned about the biggest drama of Lexington County since I left, fast food restaurant Rush’s French fries! Apparently they got rid of the fries everyone had loved for decades, but then they brought them back again.
It’s like Lexington’s very own Cracker Barrel scandal! Sadly I never made it to Rush’s during this trip I’m sorry to say. I guess it’s another reason to come back.
I shouldn’t have been surprised that I caught up with the more progressive democrat-types of my high school friends. They were curious how I managed to get out of the country and how they could do the same. How interesting that, even as my politics wax and wane over the years, I still gravitate towards people like myself.
Two people reminded me that Dylann Roof, the perpetrator of the horrific hate crime at an African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, briefly attended our alma mater a few years after we graduated. Dylann was convicted of murdering nine people, and he is currently on death row in Indiana. I knew the name Dylann Roof and his story, but I’d blocked out that he attended my high school.
Dylann Roof’s shooting led to the confederate flag coming down from the SC State House. That needed to happen, but it shouldn’t have taken a horrific hate crime for us to get there. And as I sat in on the peace event that Saturday morning and as I reflect on the direction of the South now, I’m happy to see certain symbols become less prominent in the community, but also, obviously I would much prefer to have nine people still alive right now over anything else. I get so sad thinking about these topics.
I write these words after spending hours in museums and galleries in Richmond, Virginia which tell the stories of the beginnings of America. Every time I learn more about our country’s foundations, I feel conflicting emotions. When I walked through the Soda City Market I felt immense hope for a multicultural future where we judge each other for the contents of our character and not how we look nor the sins of our ancestors. But even recent history makes me worry it might not be possible.
Speaking of guns, (which Dylann used) a point of cultural difference I must point out for my Australian readers: as I talked with two women I was reconnecting with this last week about school shootings, violence in America, reproductive rights etc, we all seemed to be on the same page. Both Rachel and Macey vehemently agreed, we had to do something about guns in America. There are more guns than people, school shooting are outta control etc. if you know the narrative, you know. But I was surprised and amused when, as we wrapped up the conversation, they both mentioned (confessed?! lol) that they themselves were gun owners! That is the most American thing EVER. But also, who knows, maybe if I still lived in America I would own a gun too. Many American men have advised me to get a gun while living in or travelling here.
I’m happy I caught up with people I never would have imagined catching up with, not only seeing them, but also having meaningful conversations and spending time with them. Macey, Rachel and I galavanted across the city. My last night in Columbia I convinced them to join me for a bluegrass open mic at Bill’s Pickin’ Parlor. I saw Ralph Stanley and Sons here with my Dad years ago. It holds a special place in my heart. After we left, Rachel asked me if I noticed how the man who kindly greeted us and made our popcorn had a gun attached to his belt. I had not. I was chatting to him about music and living in Australia.
Conflicted as South Carolina makes me feel, I know you can’t forget where you come from.
Liberation comes with leaving. Stereotypes, cliches, opinions or memories people have of you wash away. In a new place you can reinvent yourself in a way you never can if you stay put. Who would I have been if I never left South Carolina? I worry that, because I left, that I come across like I’m better than everybody I grew up with. I guess this fear is the price you pay for leaving, when you come back.
By migrating to a country that has benefits that the US could only dream of (free health care, incredible workers’ rights, safety, reproductive rights, a higher quality of living in every way) I am allowed to look at my childhood through an inquisitive, distant lens that most people I grew up with do not have the luxury of doing. I don’t think I’m any better than anyone I grew up with, but my life has unquestionably gotten better since I left.
I also don’t want to think my life is worse compared to the people I grew up with. I proudly pursue an unconventional life. Adulthood has meant sinking my teeth into whatever is in front of me and not thinking much about what lies ahead nor what I’ve left behind.
This September I leaned into a growing desire to connect with where I’m from, even though I worry it might be in a superficial way. I don’t know what I expected from my high school reunion, but I’m glad I went. Now I hope to welcome a few folks from WKHS to Australia some day. Y’all come on over!
