A Road Called Memory

I was browsing through some old photos of myself tonight, and it struck me how different life is now.  It’s not my looks that have really changed throughout the years.  I’ve changed my hair color, as women are apt to do, but otherwise a lot is the same – including my weight (thank the Lord for small victories!).  What struck me is how utterly old I feel now.  And, I guess in some ways the mountains I have successfully climbed in life have aged my soul even if they have not aged my body.  I have started to further comprehend the ‘with age comes wisdom’ quote, though at times I would gladly trade back some of the “wisdom” I have learned the hard way through life’s many trials in order to return to the innocent freedom of youth. 

As my mind continually veered back through the years I came to rest on my first crush in junior high.  My 12 year old is going through some similar life events and first ‘loves’ (and I use the term “love” loosely here) that I did at his age.  Seventh grade was such a magical year, when I look back on it now.  Actually being in the seventh grade however was very, very difficult as my body rushed to catch up with the emotional advances that changed and fluctuated daily.  My feelings about Austin, though, never wavered the entire time I was in middle school.  Thinking of it now, I giggle out loud.   Little Austin.  And I do mean little.  I was the shortest girl in my class.  He was shorter than I was.  But boy what he lacked in height he sure made up for in cuteness!  The pure infatuation I had with that boy…I still remember how he used to flip his straight, brown hair and roll his pants legs.  (This was the 90’s, okay?  We ALL used to roll our jeans.  You always had to buy them longer, so you could flip one side over the other and then fold them up twice.  Gave them this nice little skinny leg appeal.  Even the boys did it.)  Although one of the most popular kids in school (if not THE most popular boy), Austin still had this home town charm and offered a politeness to everyone he met – all the way from the future prom queen down to the band geeks.  And yes, I am proud to admit it – in school I fell into the latter category instead of the former. 

How things change as we age!  I came into a beauty all my own the summer between high school and college, and Austin was long since forgotten.  Surprisingly though, the lesson of that first love never did leave.  The innocence of childhood does still remain such a powerful force deep within our hearts.  Sometimes all it needs is a little nudge to come forth into reality.  As I find myself an older woman, single again, I seem to travel back to those gentler days with more and more frequency as I remember the incorruptibility and the longing of things yet to come.  I can still taste the promise of so many open opportunities that were to lie ahead of me, and those past memories are juxtaposed with the harsh reality I have already come to know so closely and deeply.  As I begin to step a toe out into the dating world, testing the water to see if it is in fact warm enough to jump into, I think back to little Austin.  Those magical feelings I would so innocently experience as my heart would skip that beat when he’d walk by in the hall still brings a flutter to my stomach.  And really now is no different than seventh grade; I look forward to the flutter and tickle of things unknown that have yet to pass.

I looked back through those photos yet again, and although my body as well as my mind has certainly aged, I looked close – peered in – and I did see it.  The shimmer and glistening in my eyes of those things hoped for but not yet come to fruition.  I began to rethink the ‘with age comes wisdom’ quote.  Maybe wisdom is nothing more than adding the innocence of childhood to the experience of today – the joining of the optimism from yesterday and the joy of the present together in order to experience a hope for tomorrow.  Who knows, maybe my ‘Austin’ is still out there….