Hump Day Crush: Words from Long Ago

I’ve been reading through old journals of mine from high school.

Some of it is quite painful. Not just because of my bad spelling and even worse handwriting, but because I had some really seriously depressed times back then. My head was far from screwed on straight and I had very little conscious clue of who I was.

Luckily, every now and then I’d have these bursts of insight. Even better, sometimes I’d actually write them down.

On 18 January, 1991, we were three days into the (First) Gulf War. That night, after school ended, there was a big basketball game followed by a dance. It was probably one of the best nights of my life when I wrote about it the next day (after a decidedly nowhere near as fun or positive evening).

What follows are the minimally edited words from long ago [with some editorial comment].

The game was good, the cheerleaders were good, the pep band was great [I was in the pep band], the Monticello team needs a little work. That’s only because they lost.

Not the dance, that was fun. Although it was only a regular dance with a D.J., not a video dance with a V.J. The music was pretty good.

I spent most of the time going around seeing how everyone else was. Most of the music went by with me standing and trying to talk or with me waling around to the beat. The slow songs, though, i did dance (not that’s a change for the better). Out of three slow songs that were played, I danced for two of them with someone else. The first one was the one I didn’t dance to. The second, I danced with one of the ladies from the cast of the play (I can’t remember her name). [I would remember later that it was Karen… something…] The third (and possibly my favorite) I spent with Sarah.

[We’ll skip the who else was dancing with who and some proto-snarky observations. I wasn’t witty enough then to be really snarky.]

Now we’ll save the dance from tonight [that’s the one that really wasn’t very good for me] until tomorrow. Right now, I want to talk about someone I’ve mentioned before and whom I consider important to my life. Sarah. [nope, not going to use her last name]

Sarah was one of the few truly wonderful people I met when I was in Oliver. [That would be the first play I did during my freshman year.] This year, we became a little closer and she read some of my poems. She is also one of the few people that actually understand and can feel my poems’ message. It is this that makes her, along with Kristin and Jill and very few others, truly special to me.

While she is physically attractive, she has a beautiful soul. Her attitude is at least as positive as mine. [When I was having a positive attitude day… I apparently had some short-term memory issues or something. *grin*] Her ideals also appear to be strong. She’s one of those people that almost eveyrone else is comfortable around. i feel I can put m trust in her.

While Kerry can be counted as the first girl I ever danced with, Sarah is the first that I ever asked and was accepted.

She would, indeed, be very important to me. Without question, she’s one of the people that helped me survive the very rough years that would follow–sometimes by just being there, other times by giving me bright moments like the one above to focus on when things got very, very dark.

We all need to remember that everything passes. We choose what we remember, what we hold on to. Given that choice, it is frightening how often we choose the negative, the dark, the hurtful. Right up until we can’t take it any more… then we remember those points of brightness and they lead us back out of the dark.

Being able to use those good points as guideposts is another one of the keys to learning about yourself through your relationships. When those real moments happen, make note of them. Put them somewhere you’ll be able to look back at when life gets dusky and the world gets heavy on your shoulders. They will serve as triggers to remind you of what you’ve done right… and of how good things can be.

The Universe has seen fit to bring Sarah back into my circle of contacts. Even if we don’t talk much and have yet to actually see one another again, it’s good to know those embers of friendship from so long ago haven’t died out. This makes me very happy.