dot to dot

Today as I cleaned in the basement I found my old Jr. high school year book ( yes I lived in the time before they called it "middle school") I was in sixth grade and I lived in Arlington Heights, Illinois.  I looked through the pages and read a few things that friends had written. I found myself looking at a face and then trying to remember a name; first or last to identify the person. I couldn't do it on most but there were a few that I could recall. Those were exciting and transitional years for me. 

I absorbed the feelings that came with the faces.  The boys no longer had cooties in those years. Suddenly boys were funny and they were my friends.  I realize now I was blissfully naive  and so trusting in those days. I miss that now. The world seemed so simple and I was grateful that I could almost jump into that book and feel that feeling of safe-keeping...peace and calm.

I remember I walked four or five blocks to school each day. I started my walk out the front door and in the next block I would wait for Linda Zielnicki and Martha Hunter to join me. We then walked nearly 2 more blocks for Jessica Migliore and Kari Olson to join us. By eighth grade several of these friends were smoking pot and sleeping with boys. I felt a sadness and a disconnect then and I did again today when I saw how truly young we were. I wondered how their lives turned out. 

I thought of how simple I would like my life to feel again. I want to feel the peace and the calm and the coziness of it all. Is that even possible now?

I think I found the answer in the day that followed my review of my old yearbook. I seemed somehow to connect the dots back to a feeling I had had a long time ago. 

The remaining hours of my day felt different; soothing almost.

I am thankful as I reviewed my life as a thirteen year old girl that I did not have feelings of regret or disappointment in how I was conducting my life back then. 

It is a wonderful gift.