As I sit here listening to my boyfriend play video games and the sound of the Kalamazoo Central Commencement ceremony on t.v. in the next room all I can think is, he's really just a person. I'm referencing the start struck atmosphere of the entire Kalamazoo area as President Obama is slated to speak at the graduation ceremony.

The kids worked hard for this and I am very happy for them. I am just wondering what I would think and feel back then. I think about every time I have ever been around anyone that is even remotely famous. I am pleased to meet them, but typically just want to have a conversation with them like any other normal person I see and do not feel star struck.

I remember one day I was sitting at my lunch table in college. Apparently, one of my class mates had invited our University President to sit with us after chapel that day and he actually did. (That part was more of a shocker than anything else.) I ended up somehow sitting across from him with my roommate on his right. As we passed glances across the table at each other, I began to see that no one had any desire to even speak around him.

I couldn't take it. I was going...but he's just a person, why are we acting like this? So, I broke the ice and I asked him a question about his sermon. LOL of all things it was a simple question, "How did you not know you were going the wrong way into the carwash?" This allowed my classmates and I to hear the rest of the story which was funny. And even after we were all laughing and relaxed a little more, I was the only one talking. We swapped embarrassing stories and both griped about our homework loads to finish the degrees we were working on. See, like I said, he was just another guy.

You know what happened after that? Nothing of major significance. But, one day, months later I was out at hobby lobby of all places and President Roberts walked by me with his daughters and said hello to me by name.

It doesn't take being all star struck to be remembered. It doesn't make an even more special. In fact most people in famed situations prefer to just be talked to like they were someone you have known forever and not like "you're their biggest fan."

Just something to think about.