Monday, October 27, 2008

Sunday Reflections: Homecoming Post




Some music from The Mercury Program for your listening pleasure:



Ok, this Sunday Reflections post will be focused on my college homecoming weekend or for me night because work is a bitch this career finds a way of intertwining into my personal life.

So it was my five-year reunion and I was very, very nervous before going to it. College was an interesting experience for me and it was a good time but there also were some bad times that I’ve come to terms with and accepted. However, I’m a different guy now then I was when I graduated in 2003. I’m a lot more comfortable with myself and learned to establish my own life and develop my personality.

I was social in college and had friends but I was also shy and socially awkward. I wouldn’t have people in my room, didn’t like to party and would not express my opinions or emotions to others.

If you told me then that I would have a blog that I would actually state my name and express personal opinions, I would say there’s no way I would do that.

While all of this is fine and good, I was unsure about going to my reunion because I was doing the one thing that I tell myself, younger family members and everyone else to not do.

I was comparing my life to everyone else.

I feared that I would go to the event and feel little compared to some of my classmates that are doctors, lawyers, mothers, fathers and a lot of other things that I’m not. I didn’t want to go to the event and leave feeling that I have accomplished nothing with my life, wasted four years at Vandy and have no hope in the future.

However, I was talking with the People’s Champion and he told me that I should be proud of what I’m doing. I’m in graduate school, working and doing something that I really like. The Icon to the masses was right and I went to the event on Friday night.

First, I saw that there was an open bar and knew that this was going to be a good night.

If Vandy didn’t learn anything from my class from five years ago is that the best and worst thing that they could have done was have an open bar. We may be older and wiser, but we’re still fishes. They actually ran out of liquor later at the night. I made a basic request and they were dry.

So I walk in there, see the open bar and then run into two guys who I used to hang with and hadn’t seen in literally five years. They look exactly the same and we just hug each other. One of them tells me that I look the exactly the same and I’m still smiling.

I have to explain that one. I was always known as the guy who smiled and was an optimist. Over the years, this has lessened and I’m not that dude anymore. It happens when you get older. However, I still look at things from mostly a positive way but not as much as in 2003.

So Alfredo is telling me this and I just think about where I’ve come from and how I’m back in Nashville to experience this stuff again. At that point, I was happy and had a great night. Some observations in bullet-point style.

-It seems like my classmates either stayed in Nashville, went to New York, D.C. or Texas. Its so odd that I’m from the NYC and moved to Nashville and been in the southeast since 1999 while classmates were in the south their whole life and moved up north and stayed there after college.

-I didn’t realize how popular I was. This isn’t me stroking my own ego, I just knew a good amount of people there. Some were coming up to me and just started telling me stories about stuff we used to do and I had no clue. Thank goodness for nametags.

-How were the ladies? Well, there were shockingly few that peaked my interest in that way, even though an old friend was enjoying the evening and flirting with me but that was the alcohol talking. She does live in town though so we’ll see what happens. Other than that, nothing special to report on that end.

-There were two women there that I was absolutely shocked were married. The first one actually brought her husband to the event and she came up to me to introduce him to me. BTW, she looked amazing and that dude is lucky to have her. She has the same personality, which was good to see. I never hooked up with her but we were very “friendly” with each other back in the day (I love when the quotation marks make an appearance). I was cordial but I wanted to say that dude, back in the day, yeah that would have been a bad move.

The second one I never got down with in any way but we were running buddies for a while. She was very nice, very hot, and had cute friends so of course I hung out with her. I was talking with one of my buddies there and we were just surprised she was married especially because she was very “social” in college and now she’s domestic. Who figured.

-Shouts out to my freshman dorm Vandy/Barnard! It was crazy talking to people from my freshman dorm and all of our stories. We were such a tight unit there. Freshman year in college is different than any other because its before the Greek system, clubs, organizations, majors and other things start separating you. No one knows anyone else on campus so you bond with your floormates. I can name half of the guys that were on my floor and are still friends with guys like John, Nic, Matt, Thomas, Bill, Omar and several others.

I hung with the class all Friday night but had to be up early to work a soccer match on Saturday morning which caused me to miss the tailgate which I was pissed at big time. I had to get to the pressbox to work the football game and didn’t have time to see some more of my friends.

Normally, I would have been able to do all of the Homecoming stuff on Saturday but my Friday soccer match got postponed to the next morning which fucked up my whole day. It sucks but that’s the industry that I’m in.

I look at it this way. If I wasn’t at school at Belmont and had my type of job in another city, I wouldn’t have been able to go to any Homecoming events. I was thankful for that.

Athletics, especially media relations, just messes with your social life and you have to deal with it.
There were lots of other events that I wanted to participate in but it didn’t happen but it was still good to see some old friends.

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