Junior High

This past weekend I went home for Mother's Day. Since you can't tell your mother "no" on Mother's Day, I agreed to clean out my closet. Every time I've moved to and from college, to New Jersey, Houston, McKinney...more and more stuff has been left in that closet. I thought she wanted me to go through a few things, but she had a totally different idea. Everything either went to Goodwill, the trash, in the attic, or back to McKinney with me. Needless to say, I know where my organizational skills came from. :)

As I was pulling things out, I found some long lost treasures, to say the least. Three prom dress, a Chick Fil A work shirt, hundreds, maybe thousands, of pictures, cheerleading uniforms, and thousands of notes and letters. I relived 24 years of memories-- I've had some great times!

The notes and letters were probably the most interesting to me. Kelli (Cantwell) Mellema and I wrote dozens of letters back and forth. These were definitely the days before email. I'm pretty sure I've saved every card, letter, and note I've ever received. I got a real kick out of my junior high drama. Note after note asked who I liked, if I thought so-and-so would go out with her, and they were all signed the same way-- "I love ? You love ?" Of course, those question marks were replaced with the latest boyfriend-- Mark, Matt, Nathan, Chad, Adam, Matt again, Chad again.

Some excepts from my personal favorites:"Dear Christen, Don't show anyone this. For your eyes only. The thing that I said I knew is that you like my boyfriend. I can't tell you who told me. But I could tell you liked him. You're always talking about him. I'm pretty mad at you, well not really. I love you! Best friends forever! P.S. He doesn't like you."

"Dear Agent Jen (aka Christen), Your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to find me a boyfriend. I think the guy I've been telling you about is over you-know-who, so try to get him to ask me out. This message will self-destruct in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 BOOM"

I think I stopped breathing from laughter when I found a note that had obviously been crumpled up and found or stolen or something by me. It was a conversation between two unidentified people-- a guy and a girl. They were talking about someone, but the last line is what got me: "I can't believe you voted C.Carter prettiest just because of her butt." For the record, I was never voted prettiest, but I obviously caused some drama with my backside. ;)

Overall, I decided, I was pretty shallow, not always the best friend, and quite boy crazy. I'm glad things have changed. Well, two out of three is good. ;)

To a life full of crazy, wonderful, hysterical memories, I'm so glad I got to relive it for a weekend.