The Past Doesn't Become The Present !

Would you have ever thought that a 40th class reunion would have opened so many closed doors? Some of us went from the first grade all the way to our graduation together.  Many of us grew up in the same neighborhoods.   We would hang out all day at school and stay together till our Mom's yelled out the door it was time to come in for supper.  Forcing those friendships to separate till the early am when we started all over again.  We lived at one another's houses all week long and most week-ends.  Inseparable we were, calling our parents Mom and Dad, sleeping over and swapping week-ends, eating each others groceries, fighting with each other's siblings and longing to live at someone else's house.  Grade school crushes,, notes passed, valentines written, sweet stolen kisses in the playground, games of tag, four square, Brownies and Cub Scouts.  Days of innocence to many of us, days of sweetness and laughter.  Days of forging friendships that we thought would last forever. 

Life has a cruel way of jumping up and biting you in the butt big time when you head off to the so call "Big Time".  We quickly went from playing in the schoolyards of our grade schools to pimple face teen agers, we changed and so did life.   Our personalities and views of others rapidly replaced those so called days of innocent.  Friends of grade school became less important to some and climbing the social ladder, being "IN", excelling at grades, not being noticed, being the ONE, so many titles became so much more important that just being who we really were. 

This social process only worsened as we entered High School, the unlabeled, the band,  the jocks, the cheerleaders, the science club, the misfits, the goat ropers, the unnamed.   We became a community within ourselves.  Some of us on a given day would not even speak to some of our very own childhood friends that we had in the past spent nights gathered around the dinner table with.  We had become what we had always deemed unworthy of - a group of people who could not see past our noses at the person in front of us for fear that we might not like what we saw.  OURSELVES. 

Well, I found out that after forty years, labels are not important, a person is usually who they were all those years ago in grade school.  You just have to look past all the garbage they went through to try to convince themselves and others that they weren't who they thought they were.  We all want to fit in, we all want to belong and we do....

Today one of my oldest and dearest friends joined me to walk for an event with one of my newest high school friends.  I cherish them both.  One I have known all my life, the other I have known for 40 years.  Both are accomplished talented and  gifted women. One I probably never spoke more than ten words to in all of High School, the other I shared secrets with through out my life.  But, I label them both friends ! They are sweet, sweet spirited and loving. 

Some of the neatest friends I have now are from that beautiful 40th reunion.  People I talk to daily, people that pray for me, council me, facebook and text with or that actually come and see me.  These are people that I didn't even think knew my name in High School.  I am discovering more and more about myself through their eyes. 

The past doesn't become the present if you open your heart and remember that GOD opens those doors that might once have been closed.  Take time to reconnect with your past, you might find that it is a blessing waiting to happen !

Thanks Karen Holly Owens,  Debbie Gilmore and all the members of the Class of 1972 for your amazing friendship and the joy your bring to my life  !