My very first high school reunion was last Saturday night. It's been 10 years since I graduated and high-tailed it outta Portland and headed for Chicago, only to come screaming back a year later. And it really does seem like it was about 10 years ago. Long enough that there were many people at the event that I'd completely forgotten about, but not long enough that I didn't at least recognize almost everyone, even if I couldn't remember all of their names.

I'd had a good time in high school. Of course, I had all the same traumas most teenagers have. I was insecure about my looks, I worried about what I said and what people thought of me. I had obsessions, healthy and unhealthy, I was always overextended. My mother drove me insane. But I had good friends and we had fun together. More happy memories now than bad.

The good parts of the reunion were fabulous: Everyone looked fantastic. I mean, really good. People who were just kinda attractive were total hotties. The people who had been good-looking still looked great, some even better. Everyone did interesting work and was successful at it, or at the very least they were enjoying the journey to success. There were lots of lawyers, which I expected, and lots of teachers, which I didn't expect. People seemed to be making money by doing what they'd always loved to do. A few people who had close friends had or are having babies, which thrilled me to tears, literally.

The gathering was at a local bar and it was crowded and cramped. Looking back, this was probably a good thing because it was easy to get "stuck" in the crowd with someone you hadn't talked to yet, perhaps ever. That happened to me more than once and I was happy to find out even a little about someone I'd never had a chance to know.

I have no idea what people thought of me and I didn't really care. People who'd been my friends were still friendly, people I didn't know back then seemed to appreciate that I was interested in who they were now. That felt good. In high school I was shy, except within my insulated clique, and I'm sure people thought I was a snob.

We drank, danced, laughed and congratulated. I even made up with an old friend who'd become a foe for reasons I never understood. We're having brunch this Sunday.

The bad part of the evening is the part that I'm still dealing with now and probably will be for a long, long time: my old boyfriend, Vincent, hanged himself in Forest Park not three months ago. The same park where we would hike in the middle of the night that summer we were together and make out under the trees with the stars peeking though the canopy. I found out when I walked in the door and saw the memorial plaque for him. I saw his picture and two dates and his name and the phrase "Peace Be Still." It took a few times of putting all those pieces together before I realized what they meant.

First reaction was disbelief. I didn't understand how he could die without me knowing about it. We'd always had this unexplainable connection. I would be in some random place, know he was near, turn around, and there he'd be. Second reaction: overwhelming grief. I had to get out of there. I ran out of the bar, down the street a block or two and ducked into a dark alcove surrounding a pair of black steel doors locked with a giant chain.

I sobbed. And sobbed. And screamed. And stopped breathing and starred into nothing. I'm not really sure how long I was there. My friend, Kim, came after me. She knew something of what I was feeling; her brother had killed himself last summer. At this moment I didn't know for sure that's what had happened, but in my heart, I knew.