Practice What You Preach

So many people have come and gone
Their faces fade as the years go by
---Boston

Last week I met up with some classmates for dinner and had a great time. By contrast, earlier that day something happened made me a bit uneasy, something I’ve done some thinking about since. That afternoon I ran into an old classmate who didn’t recognize me. That was a touch irritating at first, but the more I've thought about it, the more I could understand why.

If we all got together today and our amount of change was rated on a scale of one to ten, with ten being the ones who changed the most, I think I would probably be much closer to a ten than to a one. Now add to that the fact I wasn’t one of the more well known members of the class and that I’ve lived all my life since graduation away from Loudon, and I would think the mention of my name would send more than a few people scurrying off to find a yearbook.

So after giving it more thought, I’m okay with not being recognized. Believe me, Donna and Kathey and Brenda have all done their share of getting me up to speed in matching some names to faces.

And that brings me back full circle to something I’ve said on this blog several times. Whatever is keeping anyone from getting in touch with more of us, it doesn’t really matter. Not in the long run. Oh, initially there would be some “My how you’ve changed” or “I didn’t know that was you” type remarks thrown around, but after a few minutes that part would be over, and you would be too wrapped up in getting caught up to even think about it.

We got along okay in school when we were who we were, so now that we are older, more grey, more wrinkled, and some cases more plump, why shouldn’t we get along just as well? It didn’t matter then and it shouldn’t matter now. We had a lot of things in common way back when and we still do, they’re just different pieces of the same pie --- life.

So I don’t fault my classmate. After all, I wasn’t living up to what I have been preaching. We are who we are.