That Girl

Something fun about being married to your high school sweetheart is looking at your yearbooks together. It's especially fun if your husband is a preacher and his yearbook is signed by someone who calls himself Big D who writes, "Pimp Daddy, have a nice summer pimpin the hoes." Awesomeness. It's fun to tease him about the girl who declared her love for him. He swears up and down she didn't, but she said, "Your the coolest guy I know. (I really mean it) Your the best. I like your personality and looks. Call me."  Seriously, Josh didn't take this as she liked him. You really have to spell it out for guys, don't you? It's also slightly painful to read what you wrote in your significant others yearbook before they became your significant other. I actually told him to "keep your eyes on Jesus!"  I was so destined to be a preacher's wife. And a dork. I also used the word "Awesome" obnoxiously. Okay, some things never change. 

Anyway, I came across this picture of me getting my hair did (check out the fat rolls! Guess I have to stop blaming it on the kids!!) and it reminded me of my current profile pic on FB. One of my friends teased me about my pose and told me he couldn't figure out if I was falling down or trying to stand up. I joked that you never know with me. I do both a lot! Now I have yearbook, archived proof! Last night I was completely exhausted and feeling sentimental. I started kind of missing that girl, which is something that hasn't really happened to me.  I loved high school and had way more good experiences than bad (at least that my old brain can remember at this point), but I'm not one to really dwell on high school or miss it a lot. But last night, I did. I wondered what that girl would think of this girl. 

That girl was the prom queen and voted sweetest in the class a couple of times. This girl is queen of the laundry and has had some really not so sweet temper tantrums. That girl cried when she hit a raccoon and had someone write in her yearbook that he thought she might bring about world peace. This girl became a social worker and a preacher's wife and grew a thick skin. She also can't even accomplish home peace most days with her 3 kids. 

I started feeling discouraged. Started missing that girl. That girl hadn't known what clinical depression felt like, how it felt to make hard choices and disappoint herself and others, or what life was like without her Daddy. Then I began to think about all that girl didn't have. That girl hadn't danced with her head on the shoulder of the boy of her dreams. That girl didn't know how it felt to drive with the windows down listening to the Dixie Chicks' "Wide Open Spaces" as she drove to college for the first time. That girl didn't know Karen Napp and hadn't pulled an all-nighter studying for a Western Civ. exam. That girl had never heard the words, "Will you marry me?" or planned her dream wedding. That girl didn't know the thrill of decorating her first apartment as a married woman. That girl had never felt the kick of a human being growing inside of her, or calmed a crying baby the way only a Mama can. That girl hadn't yet experienced her Heavenly Father as God the Healer. That girl hadn't learned that it was okay to have her own opinions, or what those might be. 

That girl had a lot to learn. If this girl could squat down and chat with that girl she would tell her to wear sunscreen and lay off the honeybuns. I would tell her that things were not going to go the way she expected. That things would be harder than she was planning on. Sometimes they would feel impossible. But, the God she loves would become even bigger and closer and the plans that changed would work out way better. I wouldn't tell her about the laundry though. There are some things you just can't properly prepare yourself for. :)

What about you? If you could go back and talk to your 16 year old self, what would you say?