Being Back at Middle School

Pros- It's like the best day you had in middle school: acing that Algebra quiz, your crush giving you an encouraging smile during passing period, and making that one hit that clinched the game in PE...but on steroids. Gone are the awkwardness and crushing insecurities, only to be replaced by a self-assuredness that comes from age and doing what you love. 

Yesterday was one of those rare days where everything that could go right, went in that fortunate direction. And in the reflective high at the end of a perfect school day, I remembered a passage from Where the Red Fern Grows (yes, Hannah, I do remember junior high, I remember it vividly). Wilson Rawls describes such a day as "one of those days when a man feels good, feels like speaking to his neighbor, is glad to live in a country like ours, and proud of his government". It was strange to feel my 26 year old self being transported back into Ms. McAllister's English class, reading that passage in my 7th grade body. As Jessica put it, we never really do change completely, but instead add on more layers to our existing ones, like a stackable Russian doll. I not only remembered that 12 year old girl inside of me, but I was her again for one fleeting moment.

Con- Yesterday was also picture day. Despite taking 2 shots (the 2nd one granted from begging the photographer) I am far from being satisfied with the result. I may have to post that picture, just to show how bad it was *shudder*.