Treasured Growing Pains.

We buried our box of memories.
But now I just refer to it as the treasure box.
Included in this treasure box were our learners permits, terribly embarrassing pictures, notes passed in our Algebra classes, movie ticket stubs, concert ticket stubs, even an oh-so-special chocolate rose which was celebrated with when each of us got our first kiss (a good or bad experience depending on the case)... but to get to the point, this is a treasure box of complete insignificant value to anyone but ourselves.
That's what makes it so special.

Only several years after burying this box, one of us is already married, another is engaged, two of us have spent several months living thousands of miles away from home, and none of us live together like we had probably once originally planned...despite the new schools, the new friends, and the new lives, we've remained friends at heart. But back to the time when we were all inseparable, we were the Class of '07. SF Dons. Oh baby.

(An excerpt from my 7up Girl Series - a work still in progress):

I had changed. The girl who once walked into those doors as a sophomore, had walked out someone new only several years later. Sometimes we pay more attention to whats going on in the world, that we lose track of the change going on inside our own selves.

During those years I had learned the Pythagorean Theorem and the Dewey Decimal System, I learned that the absolute value of anything will always be positive, and that an apostrophe has three uses, all of which I have forgotten; but out of all the learning that helped me make my way into the next chapter of my life entitled: college, my heart still learned so much more. I learned to love myself and to love others. I learned that the learning never stops – and that the mistakes we might make can teach us what we need to know the most. I learned that as I drifted from friendships and even when my best friend was taken away - no one could take away what I had had, because high school can be more than just four years of homework, prom queens, skipping class, or what to wear. It shapes us. It creates us… but most of all, as I walked out with diploma in hand and the best of friends by my side, I learned with every ounce of bittersweet realization that I somehow,
in some way,
and sometimes in ridiculous fashion…
grew up.

I wouldn’t ever go back, but I wouldn’t ever change a thing because thinking of that box has reminded me of something Emily Dickinson once said: “That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet."

I guess the same goes for high school.

Those who may not have gone out of their way to bury a box, luckily still have their own treasure box of memories (thanks to the temporal lobe in the brain - one of the few things I've retained from my magnificently hard psych class).

But anyway, here I am, sitting in my sweats with my 15 minute face mask on at one in the morning, realizing that although life has drastically changed and as different as I am (or hope to be) today, one thing has remained the same from the time of burying that treasure box.
Somehow,
in some way
(and occasionally in ridiculous fashion)

I am still trying to grow up.