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!