Warning: The rest of this is more for me than anything else. It may give some of you more insight into why I'm the way that I am.
Last weekend at the TNI party I ran into an old, old friend - Jerry Hughes! For the rest of this to be relevent, I'll have to give a little background. Growing up, there was probably 5 or 6 of us in my grade. I was always the youngest and smallest by far. Yes, I was picked on, though I didn't really mind. (My scoutmasters would always ask why I'd volunteer and let them tie me up. For Bryan Regan fans: It was kind of like "backseat on the hump". If it was going to happen anyway, one might as well go along with it.)
Well, high school hit and things changed - not for the better. A lot of the group went wayward as far as church, drugs, and such were concerned. That's basically why I can't say that I had many Member friends in high school.
If there were anyone I would want to see from my growing-up days it would have been Jerry. He was always the de-facto leader of our grade and the cool one. He didn't get mixed up with bad stuff as he was more distracted with Volleyball and other sports. I always found it odd that the only 2 from our group to "make it" were the little nerd (me) and Jerry.
Running into him the other day only confirmed something that I've realized the last couple years. I'm lucky to be who I am! It's the weirdest thing for me to be thinking that. I grew up thinking "I wish I was a little bit taller - I wish I was a baller - I wish I had a girl who looked good I would call her". I wanted to be anyone besides me. (Sad but true: I actually analyzed what a nerd does so I could stop being so nerdy. Kind of an oxymoron or something like that & YES, I still have latent nerdy tendencies - but I've learned to live with them)
Now I have a Bee-UUU-tiful wife, I have my health (very few people I used to know are as physically fit as the old days), heck I'm just glad that I'm still holding my own playing basketball and not sitting out with bad knees, back, and such. I love my life and am finally very appreciative of it.
On a lighter note, we exchanged numbers and hopefully we'll have dinner sometime. He has 2 kids with one around Jason's age. I think it would be fun for us. Hopefully our wives (did I mention how cute Kristin is?) will understand and we won't talk too much about the old days.
7 comments:
Will-I LOVE YOU! I am glad you are happy with who you are...I truly hope that my boys will have the same outlook later in life. :)
You like otters eh? Noted.
My mom always told us to be nice to the nerds in school. They always made the most of themselves. I think she was telling us because we were nerds?!
(ok I was)
Haha, you will always be a nerd in my eyes Will... I just hope Jason and Sierra are as happy go lucky as you were as a kid.
Did I ever tell you that I saw Jerry working at RC Willey a couple of years ago. Last I remember, the whole Hughes clan is living in Utah. Anywho, I really liked reading your blog. Although you were a nerd, you were also a great brother. Thanks!!!!! (didn't mean to get all sentimental) :)
Will, we would not want you any other way:) We would of course, we just like you for who you are too! Art really wanted our kids to be nerdy fuglisaurs (I don't know how to spell that) until they were out of high school so that they would be able to always be themselves.....he was a nerd too (I think he still is)!
PS- we did not see any otters, so I guess you would not have had a good time:) Art likes sloths!
I must admit bringing kids up in a different culture was not easy. There was always a tug between the two cultures. I AM so happy that both Will and Tracie turned out great!
I like the Hughes family too.
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