Friday, March 09, 2012

High School Memories and Kids!

As I was trying to figure out what to write for this morning's blog entry, a million different ideas kept popping into my head. Honestly, as I scrolled down the wall of my Facebook page and scanned across the posts of my friends (and the posts from those people who are my Facebook "Friends" but I have no clue who they are, but I saw them on so-and-so's friend list so obviously they're not a killer-- you know, Those Facebook Friends!) I realized for the millionth time that my life is so drastically different from so many of the people I graduated with or knew in High School.

And don't act like you know every single person on your friend list... you may have heard of them, but we all have people on out Facebook Friend list that we keep on there just because their status updates are so amusing.

 The other day, I was stalking profiles on Facebook (Yes, you do that too!) and I ran across this girl that I went to high school with. She was a few years older than me in school, so now she's not technically a "girl," more like a "woman" and wife now. Anyway, that's not the point. While I was browsing through her old photos, I ran across one that was taken in the past few weeks, and for some reason, I stopped and studied it for a minute or two. That's when I realized what my generation is now headed down that path to the big 30 and we are starting to morph out of that innocent stage to that "grown up" stage we've been chasing for so many years. Waiting until we were old enough to do this or old enough to do that. It's like we go through some kind of metamorphosis when we hit somewhere around 25 years of age that give a hint of what we will look like when we're 40 and turning into our parents. Some people don't look anything like their senior picture. It's kind of sad when you think of all of the time we've all wasted since high school. If you're like me, you will wish you could do it all over again and possibly change a few things or study a bit more. Maybe even drive a little better when you're handed that drivers license.

About that drivers license. I swore I would never say this, but I will anyway: I cannot believe anyone in the world would give a 16 year old a drivers license. I can't believe our parents actually let us drive alone at that age! There are so many dangers and hidden caution areas that come to any new driver and the only way to learn about any driving danger is to experience near-miss happenings and almost collisions. Basically, parents with a 16 year old have to cross their fingers and pray that their child comes home safe and makes wise decisions when they get behind the wheel. I'm sure my experience working with forensics and seeing some horrible car accidents that resulted in death don't help my view much, but I can't help it! I mean, I took drivers ed when I was in school too, but I was a junior. I was already 17. I had been driving alone for one year before I took the class. A whole lot of good that course did me.



On to the next topic:



I still haven't gotten over the fact that my friends are old enough to have children. What most teens don't realize is after you graduate from high school, you lose touch with so many of your "best" friends and buddies. As a result, the memory you leave with that person will be the one they put with you for the rest of your life. If you're a pothead during your senior year and six years later your old friends randomly see a picture of you holding your newborn, there's a good chance they're going to flash back to your old wild self and say a prayer that you found what it took to grow up somewhere between high school and parenthood. I can't tell you how many times I've looked at someone I graduated with and thought, "I cannot believe they're allowed to take care of a kid! What was God thinking?"



Then I have to remind myself that they are no longer that drunk senior I remember hanging out of a truck window, but now they are CPA's working his/her way up the business chain and a wonderful husband/wife. Funny how things and people change over so few years. I just wonder what people think of when they see my old face. My old skinny face. Right.



When I read the status updates on Facebook each day, I can hardly scroll to the bottom of the page without passing an ultrasound, baby bump, or baby shower picture. I lost count of how many of my friends are either having babies or just had one. It's a lot! There are so many babies that are going to be born this year between August and September, that I'm starting to believe there really was something in the Alabama water for a while there. As I said in one of my more recent status updates, I don't particularly like water, so I'm content on being Aunt Chelsea for a while.

Izzy and Evan come stay with us every other weekend, Wednesday nights are either spend the night or dinner nights with them, and they are with us almost half of the summer, half of spring break, and half of Christmas Holidays. After quite a bit of thought, we decided that it would be too crazy to have a Baby Belton right now, with all of the sports and activities the kiddos have every weekend. So, for now we're not jumping on that baby train. Maybe in a couple of years.


Well, that's all for today. I have quite a bit to do today, but I may write a little this weekend if I have some extra time. We have baseball starting on Saturday for Evan, so it's going to be a go go go weekend! Hopefully the weather will be pretty and fairly warm.

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