Late Bloomers

I spoke on the phone with one of my friends last evening from my high school class. It occurred to me after, that she is very much like me. When we were in school, neither of us talked much, we were both very shy and not “out-going”. Now, that we are grown up, (yes, by quite a few years now) we are both very out-going and very talkative. I think our classmates that we went to school with would find it hard to believe that we both finally “bloomed”. I know I did start coming out more in my senior year, but it wasn’t until reaching my 19th or 20th birthday that I became more like the classmates I went to school with were during school days. I we could say that she and I were “late bloomers”.

This leads me to the fact that our middle child has been out of high school 10 years this past May. While I find it hard to believe that he’s been out of school that long, I have observed that he was like me, a “late bloomer”. He was very shy and quiet in school.
He would say he wasn’t a happy boy, going through his middle and high school years,
and that middle school and high school were not good experiences for him. His younger brother had sports, so his experience was totally different. If you were in sports at East H. S. you were a “jock” and were accepted. If you were an “A” student, you were, I forget the word now, but you know what I mean, you were accepted also. Our son was in between, and anyone that went to East H. S. knows that if you were in-between, you fell through the cracks, and were “unknown”. That is how our son felt. That is why our son does not want to go to his high school reunion next month. He has a friend, who was very much like him, they did not become acquainted until the last half of his senior year. This friend wants to go to the reunion, because he feels he is a different person than he was then. He was also a “late bloomer”. Both of them have grown into wonderful men, and have some successes to show for their life. His Dad and I and his friend have been trying to convince Rob that he really should go to his reunion to give his classmates the opportunity to see that he isn’t the same as he was, and that he has “bloomed.” We do hope that he will decide to go.

I was only able to get to two of my reunions, my 30th and my 40th, since I grew up in PA. I’m sure my classmates were surprised to see how sociable and talkative I had become!
I know how much I enjoyed those two reunions and enjoyed talking with classmates that I never felt comfortable talking with back then. People here in Duluth can’t believe when I tell them there was a time when I didn’t talk much…they really think that I’m joking. But it’s true. And, Rob takes after his Mother!