By Ruel S. De Vera, Associate Editor
Sunday Inquirer Magazine

REUNIONS sound universally heartwarming in concept: old friends spending time together after years or maybe even decades apart, reliving old memories with a laugh, perhaps even old romances rekindled. The truth is never so easy, of course. This only really works if you enjoyed the previous time to begin with. For anyone who considered high school difficult and college a personal hell, then reunions are nightmares waiting to happen.

Others cannot understand how you don’t want to attend reunions when they had such a good time in college. But, like yearbooks and grades, college is not the same for everyone. There are demons private and public, regrets secret and disclosed, even enthusiasms hidden and unleashed.

The push to attend reunions gets even stronger when the five-year and the ten-year periods after graduations came by. But aren’t there batches who simply don’t want to reunite? Some batches reunite as quickly as five days after graduation, while others won’t even after five decades.

Just as there are broken up couples for whom getting back together is a disaster waiting to happen, there are perhaps groups who should remain apart. Reunions are an acquired taste, different for each individual. Celebrate the difference.

After all, you will always have the old songs, the horrendous hairdos, the funny photos, the ridiculous anecdotes and the class rings. Let the fragments remain apart, save whatever goodwill remains, so whatever kindness that has been saved remains intact, then and now.

Read about all kinds of reunions and collaborations in the Dec. 7, 2008 issue of the Sunday Inquirer Magazine.