Agent of Change

In May of 1975 I graduated from Nathan Hale High School in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Earlier this summer some folks from my graduating class celebrated the (gulp) 35th anniversary of our graduation. It was a casual reunion and I wasn’t able to join them. But as a run-up to the event — and also thanks to the social networks like FaceBook that make such things possible — I have been able to reconnect with many of my classmates from high school.

It’s amazing to see how almost everyone has changed! Hairlines have receded. Waistlines have expanded. Age and life and experiences have taken the fresh young teenagers that I remember and turned them into people who look a lot like my parents looked when I was in high school. I would recognize only a handful of them today if we ran into each other at the airport.

I wish my memories of that period of my life were more clear. They might be if I had stayed in Oklahoma and had kept in touch with my fellow former Hale Rangers. But, even still, my wife and I often realize that things we knew well when we lived in Tulsa or Oklahoma City or Lincoln or Greenville or Cedar Rapids or Las Vegas are now getting dusty in our memories.

Sometimes I envy folks who manage to stay in one place for most of their lives. My sister and her family have lived in the same place for nearly 25 years. Friends I have here in North Carolina grew up in several places within the community but have never left the area. Some of my friends from high school still call Tulsa home.

I’ve said it before in these pages: Transitions are difficult. Change can often be uncomfortable. But in a world where it sometimes seems that the only constant is change, the measure is not about how or when changes happen, but rather about how we deal with them when they occur. Some changes come suddenly; an accident, a death, or an abrupt shift in our well-laid plans for our lives. Some changes take more time; and our challenge then is to deal with the uncertainty… the NOT knowing… which can be equally as hard, if not even harder.

As a Real Estate broker, I’m in the change business. I regularly help folks uproot everything comfortable in their lives and — for a brief period of time — venture into chaos. And I think it’s hallowed ground. Few things have a stronger hold on our emotions than the places we call home, and the fortunes we’ve invested in them.

Understanding that… honoring that, I think, is an important part of what I do.

Robert Flinn, REALTOR®/Broker
919-698-2040 (Direct) - 919-402-1242 (Office)
rflinn@fmrealty.com (email)