Twenty years sounds like such a long time, and there are days when I feel every one of those minutes. But then you go see people that were so important to you then, and they don’t look so old, especially not if you see their old selves superimposed on these new faces they’re wearing.

Some of them wear almost the same face they did back then, some of them you can see the mileage on, and some of them you wouldn’t recognize at all if we weren’t all wearing convenient nametags. I have to admit that I’m horrible with names and faces, and failed to recognize some people I knew fairly well.

But that was OK; my goal for the evening was just to have fun and to enjoy who they were now, regardless of who they were then, or who we were in relation to each other. It mattered so much back then, and was still so apparent at the ten-year reunion, when we all seemed to have something to prove, if not to everyone else then at least to ourselves. It was a mile-marker to say that we were all right, that we’d made it through some of the hard years.

Turns out, the hard years were yet to come, and no doubt still are. And on the way, some of the old boundaries were completely dropped. Who cares who hung out with who? Are you fun now? Are you interesting? Shall we have a drink together?

And so we did, and it was good.

I went with some girlfriends. An exact range of girlfriends, really. My life-long best friend. A woman that I didn’t even know until six months ago, but now enjoy quite a bit. And a woman that I did remember; we weren’t buddies then, but we were friendly, and I sure do like her now.

There were people on my short list of must-sees. This man topped it. He was an exchange student from Italy, staying with one of my closest friends. He made such an impact on the class in his short year here that he absolutely was the star of the show, and I just about knocked him over, I was so happy to see him. He came from Paris that morning, on a whirlwind visit, and I think he’s probably back home with his fiance and new baby by now. He remembered our kiss goodbye too - all of those things that I’ve forgotten, and that’s not one of them.

So I got pretty well drunk, and for once lived the life instead of documenting it, so I don’t have a lot of pictures. And I won’t remember a lot of it in ten years either, but that’s fine too. I’ll enjoy re-meeting them at our thirty year. And I intend to keep some of these new-found friendships active between times.

Oh, and my shoes? Hot.