ONWARD AND UPWARD

I’ve moved beyond hurt feelings now, because they are a waste of important energy. It was also pointed out, by someone who does not know me personally, that I should love the people who treat you right and forget about the ones that don’t. It’s absolutely the best advice I took in this past week. So it’s now onward and upward to the better parts of life.

I am looking forward to this weekend, and catching up with people from my high school years. Living out of town for the past 25+ years, I have only been able to reconnect with some on line. This is something we all must face during our life. We’ve had to face it sooner with the internet and social networking available now. Our faces are plastered on the web, along with our personal information. Though I still feel 17, the reflection in the mirror casts a more realistic truth. However, this will not stop any of us this weekend. We will all revert back to the teenage girl attitudes with make up, clothing and cliques. The boys will act cooler, and more aloof, as they did way back when. LOL! I can’t wait!

So, after all of these days past take place, I line up expectations and hopes for a great time. With all of the girls’ reversion to seventeen, there will be cattiness, bragging rights and stuff you just can’t unknow. Who slept with whom, how much surgery some have had, and deeper details of lives, will be the gossip for the evening. The memories are more difficult to discuss because we are all much older, too many things have taken place in our lives since then, and most importantly, we were all high in some way in the early and mid 1970s. This was back in the days when a nickel bag was $5 and the lower drinking age was merely going over the bridge, across the Mississippi River. The old memories tend to get a little murky.

If you think the old school yearbooks help, they do not trigger the memories either, especially when you read what your old classmates wrote. One boy, Joe, wrote “I wish you would have gone to the Lynyrd Skynyrd concert with me.” I have NO IDEA what I was thinking back then!

Then it will be onward to Aunt and Uncle’s house. My cousin and her family live in the same town too, so it will be a very nostalgic walk with old and fond memories. Sunday morning, I will go to Mass, eat breakfast, have a massage, then get on the road to see Aunt and Uncle. My visit is long overdue, and must put them on the rotation to visit every three to six months. Since The Baby is older now, and everything seems in order (for now), I will keep up with the visits to the wonderful people in my life. There is a three hour drive, so there will be plenty of time to recuperate from the prior evening.

I am looking forward to the month of September. So many things are planned with so many fine people I truly love. There may be some memorable times to drop off and other new ones to pick up. Now I realize the advice was so true, and could not have come at a better time for me - the people to spend time should be selected from the group who treats you right.