Who Are You Again?

Who Are You Again?
By David Stoddard

It’s funny how something so mundane can change your thinking.

“Congratulations!” the e-mail message read.

Now, that comes to me about each month, and normally I don’t think much about it at all. But, having nothing better to do at the time, I clicked on the message to read it.

“David Stoddard, you have new Riverview Gardens High School classmates. Go to Classmates.com to view them.”

But that wasn’t the part that got my attention.

Reading further, it turns out that they have added several thousand grade schools to their list.

Finally! I thought to myself.

For years I’ve wondered why there were so few grade school reunions. Why was it that high school was the time to get together for? My thinking has always been that I only spent 3 or 4 years with my high school class.

But I spent my growing and learning years with the same group of kids for nearly 8 years during grade school. Those are the folks I got to know. Those are the ones I was interested in. Those are the ones I wanted to make fun of as a bit of revenge from the past. But I digress.

So I went to the site to see who had already beaten me to signing on. When I got to the list, only one person from my class was listed. Charlie.

He was a friend of mine. One of the few I had during those days. He was the left forward of our soccer team, was bright when it came to science and geography, and could serve a mean volleyball. I remember we would play electronic football, only at recess of course, -wink-

As I read what he had written on the list, it was interesting to see how he had changed. He is married, has 2 kids and works in the computer industry. I guess the computer part shouldn’t have been that surprising to me. But then again, when I knew him 20+ years ago, computers were not even a glimmer in the world.

I began to wonder what everyone else was doing. I got out the yearbook and wondered some more. Had Dan gotten into the comedy circuit? Did Kelly become a nurse? Is Paula teaching? Did Steve get taller?

Then, I came across my picture in the yearbook.

Glasses glaring back the flash from the camera. Hair long and curly. Reading what was entered, I thought back to what I was then. A quiet soccer playing alter boy. All around nice guy who would trade you some pencils for almond windmill cookies and an orange juice.

I thought about how much different I am today than I was back then. Sure, some things are still the same. I still bite my nails once in a while, have trouble lacing my shoes and can’t sing for the life of me. But so much is different as well.

Back then, I hated school, but now see how important it is. I didn’t care for English, but I can write halfway well. I was always the shy kid in the corner, but for some reason, want to teach. Wasn’t very technically minded, but have worked with computers and some electronics. Thought people who were 30 were old, but now at 40.. Darn Kids!!!

You don’t have to go back 20 years to see how you’ve changed. It doesn’t take that long at all. Everyone is different than they were 5 years ago, or a year ago, or even a week ago perhaps.

Maybe we are not the people we thought we would become. But we can do something to be more of what we want to be. Perhaps we wish we could be more decisive or more outgoing or less of a workaholic or less cynical of the world and everyone else in our lives.

But it’s gonna take time. And when it does, you can write your own message to yourself saying something good has come your way. And let me get you started..

Congratulations!

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(c) David Stoddard - All Rights Reserved

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