Together We... Reunite

As the holiday season comes around, people begin to gather for religious holidays and for the New Year. People get together with family and friends they haven’t seen in a long time to celebrate and catch each other up on the previous year. It is also a great time for high school and college students to get together over the break from classes.

I was able to have one of those reunions today with the Region VIII Officer team from two years ago. That year I served as Region VIII Assistant Officer with 9 other people from whom I learned a lot and was able to become good friends with through our year together. Today, nearly 2 years later, was the first time since we finished our term that we were all in the same place at the same time. This was a task that, even while we were officers together, was nearly impossible to pull off. Today we did a throwback to our year as officers and went ice skating again. It was a great time being able to reminisce on the year we served together and to hear everyone’s college stories. I look at where we are now, and amongst the 10 of us, we now go to college in 5 different states, are pursuing different degrees, and are involved in different activities. But no matter how much it seems we are drifting apart from each other, we are still united by our common experiences.

On Christmas Day I will be able to get together will all of my family in one place - that usually only happens once a year. It is a time of giving and a time to be together. Being together is such a simple concept, but we don’t truly appreciate it until we are apart for too long. Even though you may not have the chance to talk to everyone at a gathering, being together and celebrating the same thing is enough to revitalize that connection. I truly believe that 5, 10, even 25 years from now, I will be able to meet up with people from that region team and have a great conversation.  No matter how different the paths we take in life, at one point we shared the same fork in the road.

It is important, especially around this time of year, to gather will people you haven’t seen recently. I often struggle to keep in contact with people as I am sure many others have the same problem. We all get caught up in our day to day lives and it just slips our minds. This holiday season I ask you to join me in reaching out to those we haven’t talked to in a while and just start by saying hi. This way we can reunite and together we can catch up with those valuable relationships whether they be family, friends, or FFA “family”.

Value the time you spend with others!

Stationed by the Emblem of Washington,