tomorrow i have to teach a lesson to the beehives about keeping a journal. in preparation for this lesson, i pulled out all 8 of my completed journals and read through some of them, focusing on when i was 12-14.
oh. my. goodness.
who you think you were and who you really were when you were that age (at least for me) are two completely different people.
if you had read those entries to me, i would have said "i was nothing like that when i was that age". HA! it's all drama- friends, boys, school, family... everything. i talk about katie being a pig (okay... somethings don't change), how i never fight with allison or meredith and how they are my soul sisters (again, somethings stay pretty consistent in life), who i'm in love with for the moment and then i am totally over them a page later, or how my dad and i went out to dinner just the 2 of us because my mom and katie were being so crazy- those things right there pretty much sum up my middle school life.
it's also amazing how i seem to get dumber right around puberty. if you read my entries from when i was about 8-12, i have nice, clean handwriting, my spelling is fairly accurate, and my grammar isn't really that bad. then, once i turn about 13 literally every other word is "well" or "then" or "like" or "SOOOOO"... holy moly!! luckily it gets much better around 18, but those 5 years in between- bless my parents and my teachers for their daily tolerance of me!
there are somethings in there that had katie and me in tears laughing so hard. goodness i wish meredith, allison, and/or leanne could have been here too- they would have all loved it just as much.
what i learned is, it doesn't matter if you are from lexington, ky or seneca, sc; rich or poor; white or not white; from educated parents or not; GIRLS ARE GIRLS!! there is no way around it.
i know i was meant to read this so that i could better understand and relate to the girls i am about to serve and i'm glad i did. but wow was it a rather painful experience. there were some beautiful little nuggets of testimony in their too, and those were nice and comforting to read. and that's what i hope to inspire the girls with tomorrow but also to let them know, it's okay to be a semi-typical middle school girl- you can survive!!
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