Having middle school children certainly throws you back into that horrible age yourself, whether you want to go or not. Recently several things have come up that have caused me to reflect on that time, and who I was then vs. who I am now.
One was the reunion where I spoke last weekend. Many pictures, many friends, many memories of days gone by. Most of them fun and funny, some of them dredging up the old feelings of 'not (tall/thin/short/developed/rich/smart/giggly/curly/whatever) enough' that we all felt in middle school.
Then I returned to some girl drama of Ashley's. Let me say -- Ashley doesn't instigate OR tolerate girl drama well, if at all. So it is rare to have any of it at this house. But something cropped up that she and I discussed and other folk were fanning into flame. I confess that I was angry enough that I wanted to go dump some gasoline on the flame and set off an explosion and Jesus won out by a hair when he took control of my actions and kept me from doing that.
Then there was Revolve, surrounded by thousands of girls, primarily of that age group. The giggles, the posing, the way the young ladies spoke to them of the struggles of that age, reminding me of that season of life.
I am so thankful it is over, yet I suppose I must be thankful for the journey if for no other reason than to empathize with all other young people at that awkward stage of life.
I wondered today -- IF I would have listened to 40-year-old me, what would I have told myself to get through that season? I still am not really sure. I think besides imploring myself to exercise to try to steady out the hormones, it may have been something along the lines of: "It just isn't that big of a deal. None of it. Ten years from now, this won't even be a blip in your memory. Stop making such a big deal about it."
What about you? If the now you could tell the middle school you something that you may actually listen to, what would it be? I may need to pass it along to someone.
