The most beautiful sentence of the evening came from C. It was already after midnight, and these contradictory images had long been superimposed: the boy from back then, who wore yellow popper sweater vests and blushed faster than everyone else – and the smart surgeon at the university hospital mine old hometown, off-duty tan on the face, well-fitting jeans. So there we were, sitting at the table in a mediocre oriental restaurant, just like in the free hours in the “Café Gartenlaube”, when we drank cappuccino with whipped cream.
And suddenly C. said: “If only I could see your hands, I think I would have recognized you immediately anyway.” Because I’m still gesticulating like an Adriatic greengrocer at the weekly market. Back then in the turbulent history lessons with Mr. Jacobi, today in editorial conferences or at the edge of the sandpit. Suddenly I knew that wherever life throws us, deep down we have this solid core that we call me. Whether we like it or not. I thought of a line from an old Simon & Garfunkel tune: “Isn’t it funny? After changes we are more or less the same.”
I thought of myself, of everything I’ve been in the 20 years since high school: nerd student, party girl with an unsteady love life, frequent traveler with a Miles and More card, mother with a secret fondness for gummy ice cream, ten kilos more than back then in the “Gartenlaube”. And still me. That was a nice feeling. When former classmates, trainees or roommates meet again, it’s a double-edged sword. When things are not going well, a marketplace for life lies and unofficial parades: the most impressive business card, the best haircut children, the still-smoothest skin. If things go well, a small island of surprising encounters. With the ex-Goth, who now runs a thriving shoe shop, and the gray mouse from the Deutsch-LK, who resides in a villa in Potsdam. With women who still have the same henna hairstyles as they did in 1989. And men who are no longer very young, who also have the same hairstyles as they did back then, and who are still not recognizable. Because they weren’t even men then, they were big boys.
Sometimes a reunion is like a date with life itself. There was S., whose son is already the same age as we were when we last took our exam, E., who is 39 and just pregnant with her first child, and next to her D ., who spoke openly about her cancer. And radiated a strength that left me speechless. The more the strangeness faded, the emptier the glasses became and the louder the conversations, the more the images from the shaky Abistreich films merged with the faces around me.
At one o’clock in the morning, my younger self suddenly looked at me from the toilet mirror: with that “I want it to rain red roses” look that I didn’t even know I had. I didn’t stay that long after that. Not only because my son gets ungracious when his mum doesn’t give him his early-morning bottle. But also because I wanted to keep that facial expression. Because suddenly it felt so good and right to be me. Did you also receive such an anniversary invitation? Go there! Absolutely! Because you will definitely meet a great person: yourself!
