I’m sitting in an airport, and I think I might cry.

Not because of flight delays or overpriced airport coffee. Because two days ago, I walked into my 30-year high school reunion expecting awkward small talk about mortgages and knee pain and instead got emotionally body-slammed by people I haven’t talked to since Clinton was president.

These people knew me when I was still figuring out how to shave without bleeding. They remember me bombing a solo in band, getting rejected for homecoming, crying after we lost in the state championship. They knew me before I learned how to curate myself.

And somehow, after three decades of separate lives, marriages, kids, careers, and everything else that happens when you become an actual adult, seeing them felt like coming home to a place I didn’t even know I’d left.

I keep trying to figure out why that matters so much.

My grandfather never lived more than twenty miles from where he was born. Neither did his friends. They went to school together, worked together, raised their kids in the same neighborhood, and buried each other when the time came.

I used to think that sounded suffocating. All those eyes watching you, all that history you couldn’t escape. If you screwed up as a teenager, people remembered. If you didn’t fit in, tough luck.

But sitting at my reunion playing bocce ball at a swanky bar and watching my old teammates laugh about the time our coach made us run sprints until someone puked, I realized something my grandfather had that I don’t: people who witnessed his entire story.

Not just the highlight reel. Not just the parts he chose to share on social media. The whole messy, embarrassing, beautiful process of becoming human.

I have 847 LinkedIn connections, most of whom couldn’t pick me out of a lineup. I have neighbors whose names I should probably know by now but don’t. I have work friends who know me as the guy who’s competent in meetings, and gym buddies who know me as the guy who always racks his weights.

I’ve constructed a life where very few people know much about who I actually am. And honestly? That felt safer. Easier. More manageable.

Until I was standing around those bocce ball courts—because apparently that’s where 48-year-olds have reunions now—and my old football teammate brought up the time we got caught at the restaurant, Chico’s, drinking with fake IDs. The baseball coach walked in, saw us, and we threw down our money and ran. Later he made t-shirts: “Chico’s, grab your 32-ouncer and run for the door.”

We laughed until our faces hurt. And I realized: this person remembered parts of me I’d completely forgotten existed.

I read somewhere that men our age have fewer close friends than any generation before us. I always thought that was other guys’ problem. I’m fine. I have plenty of people to hang out with.

But “hanging out” and “being known” aren’t the same thing, are they?

When’s the last time someone saw me fail and didn’t judge me for it? When’s the last time I let someone see me struggle with something real? When’s the last time I had a conversation that went deeper than sports, work, or what our kids are up to?

I’ve gotten really good at being pleasant. I’ve gotten terrible at being vulnerable.

And maybe that’s why standing around those bocce ball courts hit so hard. These people had already seen me at my worst. They’d watched me trip down the stairs with a lunch tray. They’d seen me strike out with the bases loaded. They knew I was a mess—and they liked me anyway.

I keep thinking about platoons. Guys who go through boot camp together, or deploy together, often stay connected for life. Not because they share hobbies, but because they’ve gone through incredibly hard things together and seen each other under pressure.

Maybe that’s what happened to us in high school. We didn’t just attend school together—we survived it together. The social hierarchy, the academic pressure, the confusion about who we were supposed to become. We were all scared and pretending we weren’t.

Those bonds run deep because they were forged in the uncertainty of who we were becoming.

I don’t have solutions here. I’m still processing what happened to me at my reunion.

But I’m starting to think I’ve been approaching friendship all wrong. I’ve tried to connect with people based on common interests or convenience. Maybe that’s backward. Maybe the deepest connections come from shared struggle, not shared hobbies.

And maybe I’ve been too careful about who gets to see the real me. The messy, uncertain, still-figuring-it-out me. Maybe that’s exactly the person people want to know.

My 16-year-old self was awkward and insecure and trying way too hard to be cool. He was also more honest than I’ve been in years.

I can’t recreate what we had in high school. I can’t move back to my hometown and pretend it’s 1995. But I can be more intentional about letting people see who I actually am.

Maybe that means saying yes when someone suggests doing something hard together—a long hike, learning a new skill, training for something that might kick our ass.

Maybe it means conversations that go past the surface. Admitting when I’m struggling. Asking for help when I need it.

Maybe it means creating some kind of regular thing; not because I need more activities, but because the best friendships require repetition. Showing up consistently, especially when it’s inconvenient.

I don’t know if any of this will work. But I know that standing around those bocce ball courts, missing people I hadn’t thought about in decades, felt like waking up from a dream I didn’t know I was having.

On the plane ride home, I wrote a letter to my classmates. I told them they’d helped shape who I became. That I finally saw them—really saw them—in a way I’d been too self-absorbed to see when we were kids.

But here’s what I couldn’t bring myself to write: I think I’ve forgotten how to be seen.

Somewhere between becoming a husband and a father and a professional, I learned to manage how I appear to people. I got good at showing up as the version of myself that seemed most appropriate for each situation. And maybe that’s made me lonely in ways I didn’t even realize.

Those people from my childhood? They remembered when I didn’t know how to do that yet. When I was just a kid trying to figure out how to be human, surrounded by other kids doing the same thing.

Maybe that’s what I’m really missing. Not the past, but the permission to still be figuring it out. To let people see me struggle. To be known, not just seen.

I don’t want to wait another thirty years to remember that.

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Every month, The Focused Fool brings you a series of Focused Actions—practical, bite-sized steps designed to help you grow as a father, husband, and man. Each theme is broken down into 12 structured actions (3 per week for 4 weeks) that build on each other, helping you grow with clarity and purpose—one small win at a time.

These aren’t lofty goals or guilt trips. They’re simple, achievable habits designed to make you more consistent, more grounded, and more present.

This month’s theme: Self Leadership

Taking ownership of your own growth and modeling it for your family.

Self-leadership isn’t about waiting to be told what to do—it’s about choosing your direction, setting your own bar, and showing your family what growth looks like in real time.

This month, we’ll help you create a personal growth system you can return to again and again.

Build Your Blueprint
Action: Use what you’ve done this month to create your Self-Leadership Blueprint (your goal, your habits, your check-in system).

Prompt: What part of this blueprint do you want your kids to remember?

Focused questions designed to spark meaningful dialogue—whether at the dinner table, during a car ride, or at bedtime. Use these questions to build trust, curiosity, and laughter in your relationships.

If your life was a movie, what scene would be playing right now?

Curated videos to help make you think, to motivate, or to just laugh.