A school reunion

Got an invite last August 15th for a reunion of my secondary school in September.
It got me thinking, because I felt a lot of emotions immediately.
It’s clear I won’t be able to attend it with my anxiety and the many stimulants. I mean, when I was young, you simply had to go to school, no questions asked.
However now I do have a choice. A choice to be amongst many people, smells, colours, sounds, noises etc.
When I think back, I think of a good time, even though I’m now against the concept called “school”, where the govt wants to prepare children to work their asses off for them as fast as possible, so that they can profit BIG time.
But back then, school was like an escape from home. Mother had this horrible boyfriend who abused us. Not physically and sexually like the dude who conceived me, but mentally.
So going to school was like going home – I had friends who were like family, liked quite a few of my teachers (and HATED some) and even though I wasn’t good at concentrating and doing my homework and thus getting good grades, that didn’t make school less nice to me.
So, understandably, those emotions about the reunion were valid, even though as soon as my mother dumped that boyfriend, I started hating going to school and wanted to be at home 24/7… Can you imagine what a hellhole home used to be for me. But also, as the children progressed on school and slowly evolved into adults, I noticed how they all became the same and there emerged a big gap between them and who I was and wanted to be: forever young. Playful. Innocent.
Ideally and unrealistically, I think of the reunion as if I’m going to see the people from back then, how they were 20 years ago.
Deep down I know those people have changed. They’ve seen multiple versions of themselves throughout those years and some may even have changed unrecognisably. Like myself.
But what has most likely not changed is the fact that most of those people’s livese are very similar to one another and to most people in this society, whereas mine is completely the opposite. 9 out of 10 are married, have children, have jobs working from 9-5, are religious, have home ownerships, have big families, believe life’s good etc.
I believe everyone somehow still expects to see old friends like the olden days. To feel the same feelings as they did back then.
Maybe they all secretly long for a time where we were children…
I think seeing people changed so much is going to ruin the image we have of them from a long time ago. I mean, how can we still remember them like 14 year olds after meeting them as adults with children almost of that same age…?!
So to me reunions are a bit useless, especially in this time where you can look each other up on the internet and catch up irl.