It's been a few days since my 20-year class reunion. As it all continues to sink in, I thought I'd share an open letter I sent to my classmates. Here it is.
To: My Classmates of the Class of 1988
From: Scott Gulbransen
I awoke this past Sunday morning with a bunch of mixed emotions.
Our reunion was a great success. I truly enjoyed reconnecting with long-lost old friends and reacquainting myself with those I had not seen since that warm June day in 1988 when we all bid adieu to Carlsbad High School.
I realized more than anything that, as Bridget Dolkas so eloquently mentioned in one of her messages to us before the reunion, that we are still connected by this period of time we all spent together. Whether we bother to stay in touch with our old friends or not, we’ll always have those four years of shared joy, angst, pain, exhilaration, failure and success.
Perhaps melancholy got the best of me the morning after. I relished our two nights of fun but also felt sad I didn’t get the opportunity to catch up with everyone I wanted to. Short hellos and a quick update didn’t seem as gratifying as I thought it might. The ever-creeping reality of age finally hit me hard: there’s never enough time during this short life we have.
Six or seven hours surely aren’t enough time to get caught up with everyone but certainly it opened the door to perhaps future communications. Perhaps some of us will follow-through on the best of intentions and reconnect permanently. Perhaps those old friendships will find new life during this more mature and ever complicated part of our lives.
Some will not, of course, and that’s where a twinge of sadness got the better of me. After shaking a few of the cobwebs, I realized that sadness is not part of this post-reunion equation. Although I seemed to feel it, I realized having just the chance to see many of you, and for us to reconnect, was enough. To see what we’ve all become; to see what we’ve all been through; to see how we’ve all succeeded and whatever we’ve decided to do in our lives is very special to me.
That did leave me with a profound sense of pride. To know my classmates have gone on to become managers, teachers, police officers, executives, marketing geniuses, personal trainers, firefighters, songwriters, musicians, lawyers, doctors, and mothers and fathers really left me in awe. We should all be proud of what we’ve become and realize that our days at CHS had something to do with that.
As the father of three children, I look back at high school and childhood with a much different view than I did back then. As we all know now, so much of what we sweated over really wasn’t that big of a deal. As I’ve lived life –both it’s many successes and failures – I’ve focused in on the good and the important. Like most of you, there were awkward and tough moments during those high school years. But, I’ve since let them go and simply embrace the good and the innocent moments we all shared so many years ago.
I did notice something fascinating at the reunion events. I am sure you all did the same.
Despite our growth and maturity as adults, we all still ended up hanging out with the same people we did 20 years ago. That was amazing to me, and not surprising.
And let me state: that’s not a bad thing at all. It makes sense, doesn’t it?
The people who were there for you, the people who are engrained in your memories are the people you were most excited to see. At the end of the day, it’s the people that made the memories, not the other way around. It’s those relationships that can be rekindled in a few short moments because of their power in our memory.
Our fellow classmate Tim Granich summed it up best to me:
“What’s amazing, Scott, is after 20 years you and I can still finish each other’s sentences,” he said.
I am sure you all experienced the same type of phenomenon at the events. He was, of course, right.
Now that the big weekend has come and gone, I hope that you all feel more of a connection to your past and to your four short years at CHS. I hope you’ll find a new vigorous desire to remain connected to people, a place and a time that was truly special in all of our lives.
Thanks again to all of you for sharing your weekend with your classmates. Thanks for reintroducing yourself to me, and if you didn’t get a chance, please do so. We were, and forever will be Lancers together.
“Don’t be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”
- Richard Bach