Looking back at the past year makes me smile and want to cry at the same time. I shoved all this stuff I found in my room when I was cleaning it from the past year... conversations I printed out for the record, cards, pictures, ticket stubs, awards... and so today i sat down and read thru it all. gosh. I am pretty much speechless. Partly bc I am amazed at what I have been able to experience these past two years and also in response to the pathetically reoccuring themes that seem to have etched my life. In a sense that makes me sad bc it makes me believe that any new thing is just really a repetition of something that already happened so it will end the same. Once again I am looking at a situation hoping that I will find some understanding of it, but knowing that the last time I was in this sort of place I found that understanding in letting go and moving on. I read letters from friends whom I wish I was still a part of their lives, who are growing up without me, struggling and succeeding. I see cards from friends who tried to make my life shine when I could not. I look at pictures, unhappy at what I see of myself but fond of the good times that they represent. It makes me realize how close friends become, how connected, and then how one day turns into one month and then a few months and suddenly u've lost it all. Although I am grateful for having had the opportunity to meet some more amazing people I regret having lost the others in the mean time. I've gained so much from everyone, whether we shared a year or a few months. I'd like to think that down the road we can keep in touch, that I won';t have to look back with a heavy heart as I do now with my friends from Belchertown who I have not seen in 5 years, wondering what they have done with their lives, how their grades are, who their heartbreaks were, if they are ok and ready to face the world of college, what their dreams are. I sit here wondering all these things about friends I left in 7th grade and I know that I will always wonder... wishing I could have continued to be part of their lives. However I would never go back and stay, having to miss out on THESE experiences here in Hershey either. I'm glad that I am keeping a record of what I appreciate from each of my friends bc when I sat down to write grad cards, I realized that I coudln't really remember what it was that made me cherish some of the friends that I have lost touch with this year but made a huge mark on last year. For some reason it is also the guys that stick in my mind... maybe it is bc I have more faith in the girls and am not concerned about how they turn out... I still feel like a mother to those guys I left in 7th grade, bc I practically was. That feeling has sort of ingrained itself into me- caregiver. It has carried itself here to hershey too, 10 years from now I will wonder how is Tim happy, did he succeed?, how is David's business, has he found a diff girl?, is Tom in med school, will he be like his father?, is Robbie alive or gone off to war? Even guys who I do not know that well, like Ben N, Galen... I will wonder about. Maybe another part of it is bc I have more confidence that if I want to, I will stay in touch with the girls. *shrug* someone should psychoanalyze that. Anyways, it makes me sad to remember how amazing some conversations were and how incredible some people are, just bc right now they are not here with me having yet another awesome experience. But of course I make myself go thru this bc it is like tradition and I am girly like that with wanting to be reminded of past sappiness. *whew* The day people stop writing letters and cards, will be a very sad day indeeed... so goal of the summer--- write to as many people as u can, and just take the time now while u are still talking to them to tell them what u feel.

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