...the more they stay the same

I went back home for the holidays. So naturally, what do you do when you go back home?

No, after you have an argument with your sister about your smacking her spoiled kid in the back of the head.

That's right, you look up your high school buddies and see how everyone is doing. And after checking to see who got married (three people I knew), who had new kids (five people), and who really changed their appearance (Christine), we got into the reminiscing. And it got a little ugly. Tempers flared, words were exchanged and huffs were stormed off in.

So how did this happen? We were supposed to be the halfway bright ones, why can't any of us stop re-hashing the same conversations we've been having for the last decade? Is it just because we've all splintered enough so that the only thing we know we'll have in common is the same old stories? Or is it like peeling off a scab that you thought had become a fully sealed scar? Sure, it's grotesquely satisfying at first, but it just doesn't feel so good afterwards.

Anyway, it's good to be home, and it's good to see my old friends again. But I can't shake the feeling that this is going to turn into some kind of deranged Neil Simon play where after each year (or scene change) we're all balder and fatter. And no matter how we try to change the subject, each time we wind up talking about the same stories and the same memories. Until act III when a couple of us have finally died and the others finally talk about getting on with our lives, but ultimately decide not to change in order to help sustain the sanity of our more decrepit, alzheimer's ridden members.

...

Of course, if it really felt that bad to go over the past, we probably wouldn't do it so much.

Happy Hannukah, Happy Boxing Day, Happy Winter Solstice, Happy Kwanzaa. Hell, Happy Christmas.