A Few Quick Thoughts on My High School Reunion

Well, if you've been reading this blog, you may know that I attended my high school reunion this past weekend. I figured that I use some time in this blog to briefly discuss a few of my thoughts of my experience after seeing everyone after 10 years. I really will try to keep this brief, not because I want to get it over with and didn't enjoy the experience (it's actually quite the contrary), but because if I spend too long writing, I might spend a little more time than I would want to reminiscing. If that's the case, it would take me forever to write this blog.


Anyway, I just wanted to say, the more things changed, the more they stayed the same. I attended my reunion curious to see the changes after 10 years, but mostly everybody I recognized looked the same (facially), just a little more mature. I took my part and socialized with a few of the people I knew, and even met a few people I didn't recognize back before I graduated.


I would have to say that this statement applied to me as well. And even though I have become a speaker who's spoken to people all over the country, I decided to play my role as the quiet and seemingly unrecognizable guy. Many people who really know me would know that even though I speak, I do a great job at it because I was quiet and usually prefer to listening others talk (and gain insight partly through observation). I played this role during the reunion, and I happily did so. But as far as me being "unrecognizable", although a few people surprisingly recognized me, many more haven't. (Wasn't really surprising, because as I've said before, I was super timid in high school). One girl I had English class with (named Jasmine) couldn't remember my name. Someone even thought I didn't graduate in the class, and I graduated with the class of '03. (If I can find ever find the video of this exchange, I may post it here).


I got to walk around the refurbished gymnasium, as well as the old auxiliary gymnasium where we held wrestling practice. We held our practices in the back half, and the cheerleaders held their practices in the other half (most days there was a divider in the middle of the gym, but there were some days that there weren't, hehe). I even got to walk the "hall of champions" and it made me smile when I saw the picture of my friend Adrian Belcarris when he won the state championship in 2001. It was even more special, considering I was there to see it. Seeing the new gym did make me slightly upset though, because I always thought it was messed up that the county waited for that gym to collapse and put more priority in building new state-of-the-art high schools (and adding seats to the county council by doing so), while letting existing schools like Oxon Hill to slowly go down.

Overall, I had a great time re-connecting with old classmates and reminiscing my high school days. People were surprised that I am a motivational speaker and a published author considering I was the quiet guy in high school, but like I said before, I didn't come there to do that. Just re-connecting and finding out what some of my classmates have been through during the past 10 years (considering what I've gone through with some of them) made the weekend worthwhile.


I will say though, I did feel odd that I was probably the one of the few guys (if not the only guy), who followed with the black tie dress code for the reunion gala by actually showing up in a tux and bowtie. (I'm used to wearing a suit and tie, so I thought it was a tux nice change of pace). Like I said, the more things change, the more things stay the same... ;-)


D4P...PD!!!
-OBE