Yesterday was my first time attending my college reunion, marking 10 years since I graduated in 2016. @Wellesley has a remarkably strong reunion culture- a testament, as we go through life, to realizing what a unique four years we had at the best women’s college in the country.  A pivotal part of reunion is the alumnae parade. Nothing could have prepared me for the depth of emotion I felt experiencing this for the first time.. I’ve never spontaneously combusted into heavy tears like this before. We organized by class year and congregated by our designated spots along the parade route, which follows the main road through our beautiful, idyllic campus. The oldest class starts us off, and each successive class joins the parade as it passes.  I am still trying to find the words for the overwhelming feeling, standing arm in arm with my college roommate and best friend, watching the CLASS OF NINETEEN FIFTY ONE parade towards us. These women are being pushed in wheelchairs, they are on walkers, they can hardly wave, and there are hundreds of fellow alumnae screaming and cheering and chanting for them. At 10 years out, a whole life still stretches out before us. God willing, decades upon decades of love, heartbreak, marriage, divorce, children, grandchildren, death, successes, failures, joys, disappointments, and LIFE still stretch out before us. We see this in every successive class as they pass by: the class of 1951, 61, 71, 76, 81, 86, 91, 96.. 2001, 2006, 2011, like a tape on rewind.  So as we advance to our 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 70+! year college reunions, we’ll get to parade longer and longer through our shared campus, we will be cheered on by the women who simultaneously represent the future and our past selves..it is an odd feeling knowing this. I will be back, my Wellesley friends will be back, and we will parade down the same little road, but a little longer each time, with a lot more life lived each time. – at Wellesley, MA