The Young Version of Myself

 I discovered new things about myself when I traveled alone to Michigan twice this summer.  Like a lot of life lessons the learning is more obvious in the 'looking back" than in "real time" moments.

So now that summer time is over and the regiment of a scheduled life is in motion I am reflecting. 

One serious reflection did come in real time when I drove past the home I lived in when I was in 4th grade. Something happened that I didn't expect. My head felt light and my heart began to race. I felt like I was visiting an old place but I also felt like I was visiting an old person. I cried as I realized that it was a person that I missed. I stopped right then to text my kids about the things that I remembered. 

This is the home that I lived in when I was in 4th grade and half a fifth grade. 1974-75 5339 Pinewood Drive, Flushing, Michigan

This is the home where, on the first day of school I got on the school bus and sat in the wrong seat. It was the school bus bully's seat, a girl named Deanna. She was loud and unhappy to see me sitting in her seat.  And while the bus driver looked on,  Deanna screamed and pointed at me and told me to never sit in her seat again. I felt as though her face was just inches away from mine. 

This is the home where I lived and went to Carp Elementary School. I remember that it was cool to wear a red bandana on my head tied in the back and wide leg bell bottom jeans that covered my shoes and were long enough to hit the ground. In this Elementary School we sang God Bless America as an entire school together in the library every single morning and then said the Pledge of Allegiance with our hand over our hearts. 

In this home my two best friends lived on the same street, Pinewood Drive, as I did. Maryanne Best lived two houses down and Sharon Randall lived at the end of the block. Marianne is the one that taught me how to draw a "real looking" eyeball. Sharon was the only person I've ever known that was part of the reorganized LDS church. Sometimes in our 4th grade communication level and understanding of Doctrine we would compare notes between the LDS church and RLD's church.

In this house I had pink rose wallpaper and the house had pocket doors that I had never seen before. This was my mother's favorite house of all the houses she lived in.

This is the home where my brother John took me on off-road motorcycle rides, where my sister Kathy had her first boyfriend ( Kent Gleason) and Joni and I caught tiny garter snakes and built them homes from cardboard boxes built with sand interiors.

This is the home where I lived when I had been caught cheating in school with a group of my friends and had to bring home a self-written note to explain to my parents what I had done. From then on I never cheated in school again. 

The summer before I began 5th grade the school district went on strike.  When it was the beginning of October and school still hadn't begun my mom took all of us kids to the Washington DC Temple open house. I remembered that bride room all my life. 

I think about my young girl's heart and how trusting and loving and hopeful I was for what I would become. I dreamed of my future happiness with a kind and loving husband and a lot of kids. Looking at this house makes me just remember the peace and safety I felt as a little child.

This safety and hope and trust is what I miss most about my young self. 

In the looking back I have found that even though I am 52 years old my mind and my spirit are perpetually 17. I love to tease nieces and nephews, drive too fast in my car with music playing too loud, I love hang out too late into the evening and gather with as many people as I can squeeze into a room. I love to do somersaults in the lake and race with my nephew to the outlying ropes in the water. I like to run to the car when the pavement is too hot and I love to sing to old songs from the 70's when I am alone in the car. 

Most of all I like to feel the freedom of a 17 year old heart. The one that still believes that everything will work out, that hurts don't last more than a day or two, that candy bars are to be eaten often and that the future is a most exciting adventure.