SAN DIEGO — I recently attended my 40th high school reunion which, as expected, left me feeling "happy-sad."

You get the joy of stepping back in time and spending a few hours reminiscing with old friends — some of whom you've known since you were in kindergarten eating graham crackers and drinking from milk cartons. But before you know it, the barkeep yells "last call" and you say goodbye. Having just reconnected after years apart, you have to leave them again — and return to life as you know it.

I love these things. I hate these things.

Now, before I return to my day job of explaining a complicated world that changes but stays the same (not unlike old friends), I have to sort out the experience.

As we walked in, my wife put me on notice. "Don't leave me for the whole night," she said. "I know you like to circulate and say hello to everyone. But I don't know many people here. Stay with me."

I said, "Of course, honey." Then I proceeded to leave her for much of the night, as I worked the room and said hello to everyone. She was fine. She knew more people there than she realized, and a lot of folks knew her from earlier reunions, social media postings, etc.

Besides, I kept bringing over old friends to meet her. I was showing her off. In high school, I was an arrogant know-it-all who liked to brag about my achievements. Much has changed. Now I'm an arrogant know-it-all who likes to brag about my wife's accomplishments.

Later, she remarked how strange it was to see her husband, an introvert who hides from crowds and recharges by being alone in his writer's cave, get so lit up from talking to old chums.

My friend George — who along with our friend Diana organized the whole thing — told the crowd that the class of 1985 consistently draws large numbers of attendees compared to other classes that graduated in that decade. This year, from a graduating class of about 400 people, 73 showed up to the reunion. That's after 40 years! As George wrote on Facebook, "We are proof that you can have long-lasting relationships and friendships with high school classmates."

The nation should take heed. It is widely accepted that socializing benefits both physical and mental health. In a 2024 study, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that connecting with others and maintaining strong social bonds lowers the risk of dementia and chronic illness while improving mental health and increasing life expectancy.

It helped the mingle quotient that the event was a politics-free zone. Because of social media, I can say that roughly half the room was pro-MAGA and the other half was anti-MAGA.

I'd like to believe I was in the center, somewhere between those who cheer me on and those who I've blocked on Facebook.

When we graduated from high school in 1985, our hometown in rural Central California was more than 60% Mexican American. The racism was in the soil, harvested by the farming industry; white people owned the fields, and brown people worked in them. As generations passed, and Mexican Americans migrated from grape vineyards to the Ivy League, some folks couldn't adjust to the new paradigm.

A few Latino classmates thanked me for sticking my neck out to oppose an authoritarian power grab that is profoundly un-American. Ironically, these are the same people who sat next to me in government class four decades ago as we learned about due process, checks and balances, free speech, the right to protest, protection against unreasonable search and seizure and other quaint vestiges of a constitutional republic that appears to be vanishing.

Yet it's also important to count our blessings. Here, I'll start: What a blessing it was to have grown up in a small town, the kind of place where people really cared about each other.

It's the armor that protects us in battle over the years because life is out to crush us.

I'm four-for-four with reunions, having attended similar events after 10, 20 and 30 years. This one hit differently. By the time you're 58, you're well acquainted with pain and heartache. In that room, I saw people who had lost parents, spouses, siblings, friends and children.

Yet there we were, still standing. You know the best thing about these gatherings? They remind us that, at our darkest moments, we don't stand alone.

To find out more about Ruben Navarrette and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

Photo credit: MChe Lee at Unsplash