In these 7 Minutes, Aaron makes his first appearance at a High School class reunion. It doesn't go as expected...
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Story created & performed by: Aaron Calafato
Senior Audio Engineer: Ken Wendt
Additional vocals: Cori Birce
Art: Pete Whitehead
Original Music: thomas j. duke
S3 Episode 18: The High School Reunion - powered by Happy Scribe
You're listening to 7 Minute Stories with Aaron Calafato. This is season 3. If you want to connect with us or grab some merch, visit us at 7minutestories.com. That's the number 7minutestories.com.
This episode, The High School Reunion. Wait a minute, isn't it my high school reunion? Enjoy the story.
I walk into the venue, and I see a guy that I got into a fight with over 25 years ago. Of course, he recognizes me as soon as I come in. There's no way around this.
I make a beeline right at him. Now we're standing eye to eye. He says, "Hey, Aaron," and I know that I have to be mindful of what I say next because this could become volatile.
Now, before I tell you what I say, I have to give you some context. First off, this all happened at a high school reunion this past year. Now, this wasn't my class reunion. It was Cori, my future wife, who you know from this podcast. It was her class reunion.
But the irony here is that Cori and I went to the same high school together. She's just eternally younger and one grade lower than me. We knew each other a little bit. We were in the same town, but we weren't friends. Our relationship didn't develop in high school, but we did go to the same high school together.
When she said she wanted to go, I was skeptical because I promised myself, I would never go to one of my own class reunions. I haven't to this day, my particular class. Why? Because my thought about reunions is this, they do more harm than good.
My thought is that it's a place where you go to pretend. It's this weird snapshot of a night where you transport back in time. No matter where you are in this current moment, good or bad, everybody looks through the frame of being in high school. It's like you go back to being in the cliques and you go back to doing what you did.
Everyone looks at you at this particular way. Then it's a night of having to tell stories and not in a good way like this podcast. You're telling stories to either embellish what you're doing, to show and exude dominance or pride, or you have to cover up the fact that your life is not together.
The fact of the matter is it's okay that your life isn't together. It's the fact that this particular situation puts everybody in a situation where they're all storytellers in the worst way. It's all pretending. It's like the embodiment of social media, except in one night with weird color patterns and bad food. That's just what it is.
Now I haven't gone to one, but this is what I perceive it to be. I've seen movies about it. People have talked about it. That's why a lot of people cringe, they don't want to go. For these reasons, this thought in my mind is what has always prevented me.
But then when Cori said, "Listen, I'm not crazy about it either, but there are some friends I want to see, and I'd love if you went with me." She was so sweet. I couldn't say no. I had to be by her side.
Knowing I had to go, I had to start thinking optimistically. I had to talk myself into it. I thought to myself, "There's a couple of advantages. One, this was a grade lower than me. They didn't really know who I was. I'm a little older. That gives me an advantage. It's a little bit ambiguous."
There's like, "Oh, this guy. I think I know Aaron. Isn't he a little older?" But they didn't have that direct connection that the people in my own class did. I felt, "You know what? That's an advantage. Maybe I can come in like an enigma and just support Cori and be there for her."
Well, the night before, we had our outfits picked out, we were ready to go, and I was actually feeling really good. I wake up middle of the night in a cold sweat because I remember something.
There's this guy in this grade, in Cori's grade, I'll call him Eric, that I got into a fistfight with 25 plus years ago. We never really resolved anything from this, meaning we never have talked. It really just ended in us punching each other in the face.
Frankly, him hitting me so hard in the face that I couldn't see straight. Never admitted that to him. But basically, our last interaction was a crazy fight on a walk home from elementary school. I'm still thinking about this.
But knowing that I might run into him, I started going through scenarios of, "How am I going to approach this? Do I ignore it? Do I not say anything about it? Do I go right at it? Do I pretend? Do I tell a story? Do I hide the whole night?"
Now I'm going in circles thinking about this. Of course, as soon as we park the car and go into the venue, there he is standing at the bar. It was like this was designed. As I said at the beginning of the story, I walk right up to him.
For some reason, something takes over in me. I look at him after he says, "Hey, Aaron." I say, "Hey, Eric, I just want to let you know, I've been thinking about..." He goes, "The fight." I said, "The fight."
I said, "I've been thinking about it all night. I knew you would be here. I got to be honest with you, man, I just wanted to say, 'Thank you.'" He was like, "Huh?" I was like, "Thank you.
Because I don't know if you know this, I'm not going to say who won, but we exchanged blows and got you a couple of times. But when you hit me, you hit me so hard, it disincentivized me from ever getting into a fight again unless I have to defend myself."
That really did help change my life. I wasn't angry. I wasn't fighting all the time. It really did set me straight to a certain degree. But I was always afraid to admit that to him. He said, "Hey, man, I just want to let you know that's the first fight I was ever in. It's a big moment for me just to even be in a fight. Secondly," he goes, "I've never fought after that."
We're laughing at this point. We're hugging at this point. We introduce each other to each other's significance. We exchange numbers. Something happened here in this moment. Everything I thought about high school reunions, everything, all the terrible stereotypes, they might still exist. But guess what? Eric and I transformed in this moment to what a high school reunion could be.
See, you don't have to pretend and tell stories anymore. Sometimes if you come right at it and just tell the truth, it can be transformative. I'm telling you, this is how they should design high school reunions. We should have tables. We should play games where we have to ask the tough questions, where we hash everything out, where we lay our cards on the table.
I swear to God, the fact that I did this changed the whole night. I was walking around confident after this. I'm doing cheers and shaking hands. A couple of people were like, "Oh, Aaron, don't you do that podcast?" I'm like, "I'm glad you asked." Felt like a celebrity.
It was one of the most fun nights I ever had in my life. I thought to myself, "How is this possible? How am I having this much fun at a high school reunion, at Cori's high school reunion?" Well, I think it's because I've changed.
I think it's because unlike high school, that night, I was honest in the best way that I could. I tried to be vulnerable. I admitted when I was wrong. I stopped pretending. It's because I'm not in high school anymore. That's what made it fun.
I realized this whole rebrand idea that I had in my head, I'm probably the minority in that. Making this event, something where you experience transformative spiritual growth and emotional growth by sharing and laying it all on the line, I think, I'm probably the minority in that. I think other people would think that's a nightmare.
I thought about this on my drive home that night. Maybe the draw for a lot of people to these things is the fact that for a couple hours, you might be able to forget who you are, forget who you are now. That maybe it's just those two experiences at the high school reunion. Maybe it's just people trying to remember who they are and those who are trying to remember who they were.
7 Minute Stories is created and performed by Aaron Calafato. Our senior audio engineer is Ken Wendt. Our resident artist is Pete Whitehead. Original music by TJ Duke.
If you or your company needs help starting a podcast, Aaron and Ken's company, Valley View, does just that. Reach out to them at valleyview.fm. Special thanks to our partners at Evergreen Podcasts. I'm Cori Birce. Make sure to tune in next week for another story.
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