The dreaded high school reunion

I am finally back in France and recovering from jet lag yet again. Last week I was in the US to take care of a few things at the French consulate in Boston, an appointment which coincided nicely with Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving wasn't the only thing that kept me in the States last week though ... last Friday night was also my 10 year high school reunion... and was shut down early for misbehavior.

Ugh. I hated High School.

If my reunion had been last year, I probably wouldn't have attended. After 10 years, most of my classmates are married, with kids and houses and pets and very Settled Down. I have none of those things. Fortunately, this reunion fell on The Most Exciting Year of my Life to date ... the year I moved to Paris! So although I had no pictures of cute kids in Halloween costumes, I was able to say "Well, I'm living in Paris...", which elicited a pretty good reaction from people. Or at least made me feel like I was actually doing something, even though I didn't have a wallet-full of pictures to prove it.

In the rational part of my brain I realize this is all stupid - I never see these people, I probably won't see them again for 10 more years, I didn't even LIKE High School - so why do I care what they think of my life?! But I definitely got an unhealthy sense of satisfaction by being able to say that I'm finally living in France, when so many people are already feeling "stuck" in their lives. (Yes, this is a toxic, unhealthy, unhelpful, self-absorbed feeling, I know. That's why it's good this reunion stuff only happens every 10 years!).

On a positive note, it was great to catch up with people I hadn't seen since graduation. Some people hadn't changed at all, and others were completely different, either in appearance or attitude or whatever. But, apparently some of my former classmates didn't change much at all. A group of classmates crashed the reunion just after dinner. Not only did they show up without tickets, but they brought their own alcohol, a big no-no (actually illegal, I think) at many restaurants. The bartender figured it out pretty quickly and had all of us kicked out. Fantastic. The funniest thing is, that if you had asked me to guess who would be likely to do that, purely based on their high school behavior, I would've guessed those people. You would think 10 years would change some things, but unfortunately not...

Anyway, I'm back in Paris, ready to resume working, blogging, exploring and massive amounts of Christmas shopping. I've never been in France for Christmas before. If anyone has any must-see holiday related things in Paris, please leave them in the comments!