The Good Old Days

People are always asking about the good old days.  I say, why don't you say the good now days?  ~Robert M. Young  



I am always perplexed by people who remember middle school and high school as the "good old days."  It's not that I don't remember- I remember very well.  I remember being awkward, unsure, and naive. I remember that my social world, my school, my family, and my body all suddenly entered a conspiracy against me.  I remember thinking that I was pretty much a grown up, and wondering why my parents didn't see me that way.  I remember a little of what my teachers were teaching, and that most of what I learned everyday had nothing to do with my classes.  We were all trying to find our way, figure out who we were, fit in, stand out, grow up, get going.  We thought we knew everything, and we were completely clueless.


A bright spot in my 4th through 9th grade years was my friend Heather Sass.  We practiced angst together, discovered music, crushed on boys, butchered German, tied up our families' phones doing homework and parsing the drama of the junior high day.  I used her to get out of my house and my narrow world.  She used me as a sounding board and to get out of boring 4th period.  We were going to travel the world.  She was going to write romance/adventure novels. I was going to be the bold and brave voice of some cause I would figure out in college.  We were approaching awesomeness, we were sure, if we could just make it out of the awfulness of adolescence.


Heather moved to Oregon in our freshman year.  We wrote occasionally (real letters, with stamps- that really dates us!) but lost touch as our lives moved on.  Through the magic of Facebook, we reconnected recently and gave each other tiny email overviews of our divergent lives.  Unexpectedly, she was in Sacramento with her family this weekend.  A gracious God made it rain, so they had both time and a need to be indoors, and opted to spend an afternoon with me.  What a delight, to see what good has come to an old friend!  We have both traveled some and pursued linguistic interests, her in English and German and me as a Speech Language Pathologist.  After an tumultuous career with- of all things- the police department, she has decided to stay home with her two charming children.  She lives in a small town, close to family, and loves it.  Though I don't have the family I anticipated, I enjoy helping a variety of children find their own voices.  Perhaps one day one of them will speak up for an important cause.  God has seen fit to both bless and challenge us, which is exactly as it should be.


These are not the dreams of our junior high days.  These are the good days, and they are now.


This is for you, Jade. Thanks for coming!


Now for any of you who bothered reading this far, here's a little reward! If you post a request, I will share a gem from the thankfully-never-to-be-repeated good old days of spiral perms and embroidered vests, that may make you grateful the good old days are long gone!