20 years now; where'd they go?

Rumors keep circulating that my high school class is going to have a 20-year reunion this summer. A few days ago, I received an e-mail detailing the program. Looks like a lot of fun; a golf tournament, a cookout, a trip to a Class AA baseball game in Anytown. I'm still not sure I can bring myself to go.

For one thing, we're 1,400 miles away, and even with the absurd amount of airline miles I've amassed in my recent travels, it's not enough to get all five of us there. I'm not sure I can pull off going to Anytown without my wife and kids; the rest of the extended family back in Anytown would be profoundly disappointed. Plus, I have a fair amount of business travel scheduled for July. Since my recent promotion, I'm not doing as many five-day trips, but I still have to do a lot of one- and two-day schmooze-fests, and I have many of those in July.

For another, I don't need people pointing out that 20 years ago, I had hair past my shoulders and weighed 100 pounds. I have dramatically less of the former and quite a few more of the latter now. I'd take the under on how quickly I get sick of people pointing those facts out.

I rather liked most of my high school classmates. I had a lot of friends in high school, many friends who crossed many of the different strata of a high school class. You remember The Breakfast Club? At one time or another, I would have hung out with all five of them.

I'm kind of ashamed of myself for not having kept better track of these people over the last two decades. I've done quite well over the last 20 years, in my career, as a husband, as a father. The thing I sacrificed to do all that was my friends. Truth be told, I was like that before I left Anytown, probably, but I became even worse when I could use distance as a weak excuse. I'm a shitty, awful, rotten friend. Too busy for this, too busy for that, too busy to send a simple e-mail or Christmas card.

In short, I suck. I'm not sure how squarely I want to face that fact.

So I toss this out for feedback: Should I go, or should I clean out the garage that weekend?