Nostalgia

I am a nostalgic person. I love my history, family history and memories. I love the pictures, stories and feelings associated with my past memories. I glorify the past and tend to focus on remembering the good things. I love maintaining old friendships, renewing lost relationships and just checking in with people from my past. I know that I tend to glorify the past - it is seldom that I remember the bad memories associated with a time or person from my past - and instead will turn it into a story or get try to get some humor out of the questionable memories. I do this with the people I care about or who meant something to me in the past. Don't get me wrong, there are those who are associated with bad memories and I want pretty much nothing to do with them (of course, it takes a sort of ptsd that their name brings to my response system to make that list).

From high school there are only a couple who cause that kind of panic for me and since it is 25 years since high school - I am sure that with that person, they don't even remember making me feel less than a person or 'hurting my feelings' for lack of a better phrase. I had my 25th Reunion this weekend and I had a really good time. I was kind of fearful of going to it for several reasons - one being, at the last reunion I felt like I was back in high school - people still hung in their groups (and I was one of them) - we know who makes us comfortable and who doesn't. I was much more shy than I typically am and I didn't like how I felt or the box I put myself in. I even went so far to ignore a guy from my class who was calling me over when I was on the way to the bathroom. Not because I am stuck up, but because I don't think we ever talked in high school - we ran in completely different crowds and I think I allowed my self-esteem to interfere and wonder 'he doesn't really want to talk with me.' Truth be told, he probably just wanted to ask someones name who I was talking with. But I was so embarrassed that I allowed myself to be such an ass as to 'pretend I didn't know they were calling me over.' That's not who I am. I think another reason was my being out. I didn't attend the 15 because I was at a point where I was coming out to more and more people and didn't really want to be the 'gay classmate' who came to the reunion (plus the way the 15 was set up, it really appeared as if you needed to be a couple to attend and I wasn't at that point).

At the 20 I have to admit that I am sure that was some of my discomfort. I was comfortably out, but this was my high school classmates who hadn't all seen how I had evolved and how 'comfortable' I was with myself. I know that the baggage I brought from the past was my own, I own that. So here we are at the 25th and I worried that I would turn back into the same fool who had attended the 20th. I was worried about not having anyone to talk with or just hanging with the same crowd and becoming all 'shy' again. I do know that I have several classmates who are gay as well and have partners, but I am also aware that I appear to be the 'token gay' when it comes to the reunions. I don't know that any attend besides myself (well, at least any who are out).

I thoroughly enjoyed myself this weekend. I got to talk and catch up with some people who meant a lot to me in the past, I got to socialize with people from the past, that while I probably didn't back then, it was nice to check in and get re-acquainted. I had fun, I ate, drank, played volleyball and just had a really good time. One of the nice things for me, is that I have this group who is doing this weight loss challenge - several are from my high school past in one form or another - it was fun for me to see how we tended to hang around together at times at this event. There is a real sense of security in those friendships. It's nice how true friends from our past can become very good friends of our present.

I need to ... (part 1)

"I need to jump in a puddle!"

Recently I was graced with the opportunity to attend and participate in a retreat. Now I used to work on a lot of these, and I honestly miss them. Even when there was work involved, the retreat and prayer aspect of the weekend always left me with a real sense of peace. The people in attendance all minister to youth in one way or another, so I admit that I had some initial struggles with why I was invited. I didn’t allow it to bother me too much though, I used to minister my faith to the youth of the world, things change and I no longer do this. However, I think I didn’t allow myself to feel out of place because I still work with youth as well – working with children who have mental and behavioral health concerns. And there’s the whole thing of ‘and they’ll know we are Christians by our love, by our love…’

We prayed, listened and shared, fairly quickly. I was blown away by the immediate honesty and sharing of feelings and emotions. There was both tears and laughter. I know that some of the immediate emotion was shared because many of these people know each other fairly well and work, collaborate and share together.

One of my favorite small group sharing opportunities occurred on the second day. We were split into groups of three or four and were to share some of our memories. I can’t remember the exact direction, but it had to do with thinking of something we did as a child that we are missing right now in our lives. I don’t exactly remember the one I shared because I really do miss a lot about my childhood – I think I shared about riding my bike in the small town we lived in. I often think back to my childhood in Bozeman, MT and while I am not resentful about our move to Nebraska, but I do often wonder how different my life would have been had we remained in Montana. It’s funny because recently I have re-connected with some of my friends from that time and with the stories they have shared and the direction their lives have gone, I know my life would have been very different.

Anyhow, back to the retreat. After the small group sharing, we had the opportunity to share with everyone something that we learned from our small groups. One woman shared that she had learned something from one of the people in her group. She had talked about jumping in puddles. When she spoke of this, there was such excitement in what she was saying that had it actually been raining, we would have all been racing outside to jump in puddles. She ended her comments by punching her fist and saying, “I need to jump in a puddle.”

That phrase kept playing in my head for the next several days. Her excitement at the thought of jumping in a puddle had me excited. I have jumped in puddles, so in my mind, I made it my own and thought, ‘I need to jump in more puddles.’ Again it ran through my mind over and over for days. It has been too cold out and there aren’t any puddles, but believe me the next chance I get, I’m jumping in a puddle.