High School...Wanna Go Back? UH NO!

Someone recently asked me if I would ever go back to the time when I was in high school.   I wanted to laugh in their face, but instead I smiled and calmly but firmly said; "Absolutely not!"  High School....High School....High School.  Man, did I love you.  I made the best friends of my life there, I  was super smart and barely missed the top 10, I was a cheerleader, I had a boyfriend, I had a cool car; and I had a lot of fun.  So why?  Why wouldn't I ever go back to high school?   My life lacked joy, it lacked peace.  There was a lot of good in my high school years, but the latter part of high school and into young adulthood was the darkest time of my life.  I spent most of my high school years with a broken heart longing for something, but I didn't know what it was.  I was shy and self conscience and filled with insecurities.  I was not really ready to move on, but after you graduate; you have to do something.  After high school, I had every intention of going to UT in Austin.  I had been accepted and thought it was a go, and I was ready to get out of town; but my mama thought otherwise.  It wasn't until the very last minute that she told me I couldn't go, and even though I was 18 and a legal adult; I didn't go.  I was mad about it for a long time...in all honestly probably for a good part of my life.  My parents paid for my college, every single penny, so I never said anything to them about this; because you don't bite the hands that feed you.  Instead of Austin, I moved to Arlington and went to UTA.  I lived in apartment by myself for a while until it was time to student teach, and then I had to move back home.  It was too difficult to hold down a job and finish that last semester of school.  My parents probably would have paid for me to continue living alone, but I think I was ready to be home for a while. The 3 of us were very close.  By this time, I had met Neil too; so all my spare time was spent with him which wasn't much. I knew I wanted to buy a house and was about to start a full time career as a teacher....making $19,000/year.  WHOA!  And I was the ripe old age of 22!  I started crawling my way out of the pit I had been in, but it was a process; and it took a while.  For a long time, I thought my mama wouldn't let me go to UT because of the expense, then I thought it was because I was her only child; and she would miss me too much (I guess I was kinda full of myself).  It wasn't until I sent my daughter off to school that I really understood why she said no.  What I didn't realize was that she knew I was in a pit, she knew my life lacked light, she knew darkness lived in my heart; and she wasn't about to send me off to face that alone.  You see, my mama was my confidant.  I told her literally every single thing about my life....the good, the bad, the dark, the light, the ugly, the lovely.  She knew it all.  When I sent my girl off to school, I didn't really see her sadness or the pit she was living in.  It took me a while to see it, because she's not me; and she doesn't tell me every single thing about her life.  She keeps a lot of that inside.  As these last few years have passed since my mama died, I have thought a lot about things she did and said.  I find myself thinking so much, that sometimes I overthink, then I have to go back and think again about how to approach something better.  I also find myself relying much more on Jesus to direct my thoughts and put the right words on my tongue, and sometimes that means I say nothing....which can be really really hard.  High school wasn't as bad as I made it sound, I came away from there with a lot of good.  The main reason I would never go back is because I didn't have joy in my heart, that joy you can only find in trusting Jesus.  I have that now, and I never want to go back but just continue going forward.  Don't look back....you aren't going that way!

Time

Time...does it heal?  I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and honestly I don't know.  I guess it's different for everyone.  For me, time hasn't done a lot of healing.  It hasn't healed hurts.  It hasn't righted wrongs.  It hasn't rekindled broken relationships.  So what has time done for me?  It has allowed me to adjust to the hurts, the wrongs, the relationships that have ended.  It has allowed me to move forward trusting that it was all the way it was intended.  It has allowed me to trust that there would be some good that comes from these things.  It has allowed me the eyes and heart to see the good.  Time hasn't healed anything, but it has allowed me to breathe and know that life goes on...even through hurt, sad, grief...life goes on.