LOOKING BACK TO LEAP FORWARD: A Lesson From My 25th Penn Reunion
Growth looks good on us!
This past weekend, I went back to my original happy place, Penn, for my 25th college reunion - and let me just say, I had the absolute time of my life.
That four-year stretch in college remains one of the most joyful, expansive, and defining periods of my life. But going back as a grown woman, and seeing everyone with a few more laugh lines, a few more stories, and a lot more wisdom, was a 24-hour high I didn’t know I needed.
Flashback:
On my first day in Philly all those years ago, I showed up to cross-country training camp in my stepdad’s castoff sneakers (he was a lot shorter than me, so they actually fit me, which makes me LOL for a million reasons). I had to borrow dresses for dances from friends, I filed books in the law library for hours a day for work-study, and couldn’t afford to go out to dinners at a real restaurant. Meanwhile, some of my classmates were pulling up in $100K cars and jetting off to their families’ third (or fourth!) homes over break.
But this isn’t a Cinderella story. Not in the classic sense.
It is a story about change, though: because what struck me most this weekend is both just how much - and how little - people do change.
The kind souls were still kind. The arrogant few still had sharp edges. I still love all of the friends I loved earlier on, even if I haven’t seen them in a decade or more, and we picked up like no time had passed at all. And the people I didn’t vibe with back then? Our energy still doesn’t match…and that’s okay. I get it now without taking any of it personally.
The magic, though, was in witnessing how so many of us have mellowed into the wisest, most authentic versions of ourselves (so far). There’s a groundedness now - a lot less posturing and a lot more presence.
(And yes, I still gratefully accept hand-me-downs from my friends. Some things never change.)
The big insight?
Thanks to my partner in crime Helaine Knapp, I discovered the book The Gap and The Gain, which offers the perfect lens:
Don’t measure yourself against the ideal (the gap). Look back at how far you’ve come (the gain).
Whether it’s been 25 years, 25 months, or even just two months, you’ve moved and grown. You’ve come further than you think.
And reunions (whether with people, places, or your own past) are powerful reminders of that.
So this week, instead of obsessing over the gap between where you are and where you want to be, honor all the gains! The borrowed shoes that got you started, and the grounded self that brought you here.