Reunion, well, maybe.

I've been looking at a website today that has a lot of people on it that I knew way back when.  It's a site connected to my Alma Mater.   It's been a bunch of fun clicking and finding people I'd long ago written off as people I'd probably never see, talk to or much less e-mail again.  I've never been to a reunion.  Frankly not too long ago I wouldn't have wanted to connect with some of these people.  Don't get me wrong, the people I'm talking about were all great people, the issue was with me.

Aaahhh, college life.  I was a different person in college than the person I am now.  First of all, I was raised in a very small town with a cop as a father and a social worker as a mother.  They knew where I was every minute of every day.  So, when I got to college, I went a little wild.  That was my first year anyway.  My sophomore year I was a little more, nope now that I think about it I was still wild that year too.  Okay, lets move on to my junior year... yeah, okay there's a pattern going on here.  I did really finally start to settle down towards the end of my junior year.  I was an RA my senior year and so I really did "do" school that year while trying to juggle being an RA, having a life and dating a guy who lived an hour and a half away.  By this time though a lot of the people that I had hung out with knew me as a girl who was usually good, but sometimes I got out of control.  

That is so not the person I am today.  I had a few rough years there in college.  My parents were splitting up (even though I was seriously the only one who knew, they hadn't even come to the realization yet), I hadn't really figured out what I wanted to do with my life, I didn't have a strong connection to the Lord yet, and I was looking for a guy who'd give me more attention than my father would give me.  Figuring out all of that is tough enough without the freedoms of college life being dangled in your face.  You have to remember too that I had never dealt with freedom before that time in my life.  So, of course I went a little nuts.  Luckily nothing that scarred me for the rest of my life occurred and I don't think I scarred anyone else.  I apologize here and now if I did.

So here I sit 15 years after graduation finally feeling like I've dealt with those daemons that were my actions.  I am at a wonderful place in life and have been for the last 8 years.  I have a great husband, three beautiful children, I know that raising them is what I'm supposed to do with my life, for now.  I have a great faith life and actually got baptized and became Catholic in 1999.  Somewhere along the way realized it didn't really matter if my father never spoke to me again that I am a special person in my Father's eyes and he made me in his image, so there's good in me and I am worthy of love (giving and receiving).  

So, maybe someday I might actually go to Reunion.  That is if they'd stop having the darn thing on my birthday every year.