They say that time heals all wounds, yet I sometimes wonder if that applies to the wounds from the high school years. Those wounds are some of the smallest, but also some of the deepest.

I remember going to a high school reunion decades ago. Maybe it was ten years after high school. All of the old feelings came back, all of the old hurts, inadequacies, and old patterns of being. Yet high school wasn't really difficult for me. I wasn't really bullied, at least as far as I was aware or could remember. Sure, I wasn't part of the cool kids table, but I had my fair share of friends.

Now, a quarter of a century after that reunion, I'm heading up to Williamstown for another high school reunion. Things that would bother me back in high school, are now minor things that I probably wouldn't even notice these days. It will be difficult. The past few weeks have been exhausting, between the storms, the election, and my mother's death.This will be my first time in Williamstown since her death.

Yet this time, I am going to relax. Kim and I are going to stay at the Inn and not at my mother's old house. We're going to enjoy dinner and discussions. I won't be as desperately seeking approval as I did during the high school years, and if I don't get noticed by one person or another, it won't hurt the way it did in high school.

I'm older now, hopefully much wiser too. I realize that much of the pain was self-inflicted. I suspect that most of the slights that hurt me most in high school were probably unintentional. Most likely, most of them were unintended and the person that so aggrieved me didn't even know it.

Perhaps this time, instead of remembering feelings of inadequacy, my friends and I from high school will be able to remember some of the best parts, for they really were wonderful magical years.

It is often said that youth is wasted on the young. If I could relive those high school years without the traumas and dramas, they would have been so joyous. Yet, perhaps it is the painful growth and transformations of those high school years that also allowed for some of the most spectacular moments.

Maybe, I'm finally ready for high school.