Kate Hackett
I’m sure if you caught a picture of me in high school and put it next to my headshot, it would be quite a transformation. Oh, I always looked like me, but the awkward hair and the braces are gone.
u/Graynard recently Asked Reddit for similar stories:
“Redditors who have actually been to your 10-year high school reunion: what is the biggest transformation you’ve seen someone make in that 10 years?”
And though I never went to my 5-year HS reunion, I’m sure seeing people all grown up is super weird.
1. Type A
One of my neighbors growing up was that super motivated Type A do everything types. Co-valedictorian, captain of the hockey team, gifted musician…just always working.
10 year reunion, went just how we all expected. Full ride to Yale, Harvard MBA, six figure Wall Street job, gorgeous fiance…and he seemed utterly miserable.
10 years later, 20th reunion. He got sick of it all, quit his job, sold his house, got divorced, and got out of town. He now owns a pig farm in Upstate New York, spends his days working the farm, brewing beer, and hiking in the forest…and I’ve never met a happier, more satisfied person in my life.
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2. Buffed
Skinny nerdy guy got busted for selling a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of Adobe software in college and spent 15 months in prison. He came out super buff.
3. It was a joke
My 10-year was after e-mail was invented, but before social media.
So I got an e-mail out of the blue one day from a girl I’d gone to High School with. She was organizing the 10-year reunion and wanted to know if I could come. I told her I wouldn’t be able to make it, so she wrote again asking for my address, because she wanted to put together a directory and hand it out at the reunion. As a joke, I e-mailed her back with the address of a cell block in a North Carolina prison.
I intended to e-mail her back the next day with an explanation and my actual address. I completely forgot to do this.I had pretty much completely forgotten about this until years later on a weekend trip to my hometown, I noticed a few furtive glances, and someone finally said they were glad to see I’d gotten out of prison and that I didn’t seem to have been harmed by the experience. They wanted to know how long I’d been in. They were polite enough not to ask what I’d done to deserve being locked up. It took me 20 minutes and a prolonged question-and-answer period to figure out what the fuck they were talking about.
All of this was 15 years ago. To this day, someone will occasionally post a comment on my Facebook page about how my current success is just such an inspiration, because it shows how someone can serve time in prison and then turn their life around.
4. Couldn’t handle a classmate’s suicide
Went to my 10 year this August. I showed up around 7 in the evening and everyone one was in decent spirits, having a few beers, except for this one guy. He was already fall down, stumble drunk, and people were generally ‘aware’ of him but tolerating him. By 8 he was knocking over tables, and by 9 had completely destroyed the bathroom with vomit. I ask a few friends “hey, what’s up with drunkasfuck over there? Had one too many, huh?” Turns out this time last year he’d slept with another mutual highschool friend’s girlfriend at the time (I went to middle school with the guy) and he’d killed himself 2 days later. I didn’t make the connection but our 10 year was the 1 year anniversary of our classmate’s suicide and the guy who may have played a role in that wasn’t taking it very well.
5. Huge films
One kid was fairly small, quiet and goofy. Nice kid, but nothing too special about him. We hung out a few times at speech/drama tournaments.
I had wondered what happened to him. Turns out he grew quite a lot and became quite popular. His acting career took him far. He’s been in several huge films, including X-Men.
We knew him as Jimmy. Today he goes by a more mature name of James – James Marsden.
I hope he’s still a cool, goofy guy deep down that I remember from the few times we hung out.
6. He’s a cop
The kid who was stealing motorcycles and selling them for parts is now a police officer. He was never accused or convicted of course but I knew that for a fact. Let’s hope people sometimes do change.
7. Vampire
On the flip side I know someone who hasn’t aged since high school. No extra fat, no wobbles, no gray hair, nothing. Even his voice is the same at thirty as it was at fourteen. I’m pretty sure he’s a vampire.
8. Everyone
Two died, one became disabled after a car accident, couple of them came out as gay, one became a super successful entrepreneur and HEAPS got really fat.
9. Dropped the fat
The class fatty dropped it all and now looks like Rob Lowe.
10. They all grew
Back in highschool we had a kid who has aspergers and was a little weird. He was, however, amazing at the yo-yo, having picked one up during middle school when we had that yo-yo trick assembly. After everyone else had stopped walking the dog in 8th grade, this guy was doing more and more elaborate tricks every day during lunch. He was bullied and teased but he continued doing what he loved.
So, at our ten year reunion, people from every strata of high school popularity was there, including this guy. He was his same old self, but more confident. I asked him if he still yo-yos, and he busted out his custom made titanium yo-yo that he said he made on a CNC lathe. He then starts to do some tricks and a large crowd gathered around. It was quite the show, he had gotten very good. When he finished, people clapped and cheered, and even the jockiest dudes from back in the day fist bumped him and told him how badass he was.
So I guess the biggest transformation was everyone else. Nobody teased him for being who he was anymore, they now admired him for being so passionate about something.
11. He turned terrible
I was friendly with this guy K freshman/sophomore year, I think. He was super quiet, shy, incredibly studious, chubby kid. Even some teachers would be like ‘lighten up, relax.’ He came out of his shell senior year and we kind of stopped being friends because he was hanging out with the ‘cool’ kids and having parties where people could drink, etc, and I was super square and uninterested.
So at my reunion, he was this x20. He is now a ‘hotshot’ kind of guy in DC working for a ‘strategies’ company. (Just googled it, no idea what they do). Anyway, at the reunion he was mostly okay UNTIL he chugged a shit-ton of beers. Some folks had left, but the rest of left at the reunion had gathered around while he picked up a yearbook. He proceeded to shit on EVERY PERSON in our year whether they were there to defend themselves or not. This was a super uncool kid freshman year (who nobody really disliked or made fun of, actually) just bashing everyone for weight, being weird, being uncool, being too cool, etc. My boyfriend was with me (he did not go to HS with me) and was so uncomfortable the entire time.
12. He’s insanely successful
This one guy used to be kind a of a bully, seemed not to give a fuck about school, had bad grades, skipped class and did some drugs in school. I wasn’t bothered by him and didn’t interact with the guy that much as i wasn’t a target of his antics.
If you asked me how I thought he turned out, I would’ve guess and was now doing some kind of manual work and had no education.
Turns out he co-created one of the most recognizable clothing brand in my country and has multiple brick and mortar locations. His brand is worn by some big names. He’s a successful businessman and he’s probably worth millions.
I think it’s pretty fucking cool he turned out that way!
Edit: Hints on the brand are in the non upvoted comments in the thread. It’s a good ol’ reddit treasure hunt.
13. Summer camp
We didn’t have a 10 year but we did have a 22 year. The year we all turned 40. It was so much fun. We rented the summer camp we all went to growing up for the whole weekend. People brought their kids. We got wasted and told stories all night. We were all older and fatter, but nobody had changed a bit.
14. Big deal
this one girl made it from stripper to mayor’s wife. it was a small town, so to her that was a big deal
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15. Rags to riches
This guy was poor. Nice kid, but really poor. Only owned 2 shirts and 1 pair of pants. People always donated clothes to school to give to family. Dirty, needed groomed, overall looked homeless. You know how most kids are, mean about it, but he was cool.
Millionaire. Has started and sold quite a few businesses and is overall very successful. Invests in lots of real estate now.
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16. Meat head
There was a guy in my class that was a big meathead and was known to be a huge bully and womanizer. He is now an easy-going artist that hugs everyone and has a very zen demeanor. At our 10 year reunion, he told me how excited he was to atone and let everyone know that he has changed. I thought it was incredibly touching and my respect for him is fully restored.
17. Sad
Two guys died in Vietnam. Their absence was only noticed by me. Just sad.
18. Matthew
Matthew. He was so small and… pasty. Made white bread look like toast and weighed ~100 pounds when I had last seen him. Barely stood 5’6″. He had joined the army, and somebody gave him the Captain America Serum, and taught him how to sing/dance/play the guitar. When the 6’2″ 230lb muscled model walked in, all the soccer moms gasped for air. When he picked up the guitar and started singing Garth Brooks songs (yes, my 10 year happened when Garth Brooks happened), their panties hit the floor. I still wonder if a country music star, killed, ate, and stole the identity of my little pasty friend.
19. Guns N Roses
I used to pass notes to a guy in Algebra class… mostly song lyrics. I’d write a line pass it to him, he’d write a line, back and forth. He was a quiet kid and friends with some other friends of mine who were big into BMX bikes and skateboards. I took a bunch of photos of these guys for my photography class. At graduation he said he was heading to California to ride BMX. He never came to a reunion… he was too busy playing rhythm guitar in Guns N Roses as Izzy Straddlin.
20. He Made It
Definitely the smelly kid. He wasn’t actually smelly, but the routine beatings and teasing definitely took the toll on this guy. He was just…non-functionally weird.
He apparently blossomed in college and ended up in law school. He became a lawyer for abused women, doing orders of protection and whatnot. He said his motivation was to stand up to bullies, so that no one had to endure what he did.
