Hey! What's up?

I spent last Thursday in my old bedroom at my parents house cleaning out the closet. I found some gems (pictures, stuffed animals, books I wrote in 3rd grade, etc.) that I'm pretty glad I kept. Most notably, I found a shoe box stuffed full of notes written to me in junior high school. I just finished reading them and discovered a lot in the process:

"Hey! What's up?" is the right way to greet people.

I'm still friends with some of those people! We're all a lot more mature now, but some of the good qualities that were obvious in those notes are still obvious today. Andrea and Camille, most of the notes were from you. Okay, most of the notes were from Steve.... My favorite notes were from Kristy (must have been written sophomore year of high school, since we didn't attend the same junior high). She was so mature and level-headed.

We liked a different boy every other week, and usually liked more than one at a time. How confusing. Who, by the way, is "Adam?" Can't remember him for the life of me.

None of us were quite sure what we wanted. It was exciting to have the boy you liked like you back...but was it wrong to "go out?" And holding hands seemed like a good thing to do if you were "going out," except when you felt embarrassed because a teacher saw you or ashamed because you weren't sure what you were doing was right. From what I can tell in the notes, we all waffled back and forth a lot.

Note folding is an art.

I want my children to understand what truly brings us happiness: living righteously and selflessly.

Even after teaching middle school for two years, I don't know if texting has replaced note-writing. My students left their backpacks on the side of the room during choir, so there was no opportunity for writing notes. Plenty of opportunity for texting, though...

I wish I had kept a better journal back then. I want to remember what my thoughts and feelings were. Ten years from now, I'll probably feel the same way, so I need to be a more consistent journal writer. Any advice from you journal-keeping experts? (Kristy?)