Life ...what a beautiful ride!

It is funny, this past week I have been engrossed with my Facebook.  I know, you are wondering why this is news.  Well, someone started a group that has taken me back to my childhood, my high school years, my summers playing softball, and the highlights of my high school career being in band, madrigals, and chorus.  We have talked about teachers we had that have since retired, some that are STILL teaching, and those that have passed on.   We have talked about how the town we all have grown up in has changed over the years.  We have talked about friends we have had and friends we have lost and how a social network has managed to reconnect each of us to a part of our lives none of us knew was missing.  I said in my last blog, I have no regrets in my life and I mean that, I seriously do not regret one thing I have done in my life.  With that being said, I do miss what use to be.   I miss being a kid and playing outside when it was still daylight at 8:30 p.m.  I miss having my mom call me from the front porch.  I miss sitting outside with my friends just talking and we thought we were solving all of life’s problems in that small moment.  I miss sleepovers, and camping in the backyard.  I miss riding my bicycle around the neighborhood and never thinking there might be danger as a stranger drove by.  I miss swimming at the community pool, eating whatever I wanted to eat, playing arcade games because it was one of the most fascinating things I had ever seen.  I miss riding around in a car cruising the parking lots, screaming at the girls in the passing car and waving feverishly because it was our time to be silly.  Going to parties at houses when parents were away, parents getting called to come and pick you up because a neighbor called the police.  We were always looking for that cute boy we sat next to in homeroom, chemistry, algebra, or even in lunch.  Finding him and then being too shy to talk to him all you can do is sit there and giggle….that is what I miss.

I have realized over this past week that many of the people I spent a majority of my time with I no longer know.  Some of us remained friends but many have reconnected through a social media and we try so hard to find a common bond to one another.  Please do not take this the wrong way; I am happy we have a social media to reconnect to one another.  I have enjoyed this so much.  You know, it is sad when we grow up and live our lives we forget what and who made us who we are.  We forget that before we made “grown up” friends we had to make friends on the playground at school.  Some of my best memories of my friends are from that playground.  My playground was a softball field two or three nights a week and often an entire weekend of nothing but playing ball.  My playground was riding the neighborhood on a bicycle visiting my friends and not having to knock before going inside.  Catching lighting bugs, playing in a mud hole, going for a hike, or just sitting outside talking….that was my playground.  Sometimes, the cute guy would find a way to your house and you might even steal a little kiss.  Simplicity…that is what I miss. 

As adults, we make life complicated.  Everything has to happen for a reason.  We spend our whole lives planning, trying to predict, and worrying about the future.  Why can’t we just live for the moment?  Who says we have to plan everything down to the last detail?  The future houses our deepest fears, our craziest hopes, and our realistic/unrealistic dreams.  What have I learned this week?  I have learned the future is always changing and when the future reveals itself it is never how we imagined. 

I would like to say thank you to my childhood friends….without you, I would not have my greatest memories!