June already...

I can't believe it. It's already June. Alex has three more days of kindergarten. My college reunion was wonderful. Truly. I think it was one of the first times in I don't know how long that I was just out in the world on my own. What's interesting is that Smith College reunions tend to be more about women connecting with women and less about people bringing their families. Some people do, but the majority of people come on their own. It was pretty great to have almost three days of just talking with friends, catching up, walking around the campus and Northampton, and not having any interruptions.

Here's one of my brilliant ideas about reunions: Why don't they just print right on the name tags what kind of cars people are driving? Wouldn't that save a lot of time? Just go for the direct hit. I think it's a funny idea. That is not to say, however, that the reunion was all about who's who and what's what and what kind of success people have or haven't had. It really didn't feel that way.

My friend Martha told me another good idea about reunions that a friend of hers who's an executive coach offered her: Before you go to your reunion, you imagine that you have (and that you take) this little pill that prevents you from ever making any comparisons between yourself and anyone else. (There's goes the car on the name tag idea.)

What stood out most at the reunion was how many smart and funny women I knew at Smith (and how smart and funny they still are -- and how many interesting things they are up to), how incredible it was to go to school in such an amazing setting with so many resources dedicated to our education, and how worthwhile it is for families to make such educational opportunities available to their children. It was also hard to believe that twenty years had passed. My sense of time became warped as I walked about the campus. Somehow it was easy to feel as though there hadn't been so many years since we were students living on campus.