Sunny with a Chance of Sprinkles

My 10 year high school reunion is taking place next weekend.  This creates many different types of emotions for me:  excitement (Who will be there?!  What will it be like?!), disbelief (There is no way it has been 10 years!  Lies!), and stress (What if I don’t know how to act?  What if I’m having a breakout or bad hair day?!  AH!), among other emotions. 

Yet, thinking about where I was 10 years ago and where I am now, I find myself reflecting on the things I’ve learned over the past decade.  And since I love list-style blog entries so much, I thought this would be great opportunity to the kind of writing I like best. 

Here is my list of things I didn’t know 10 years ago when I graduated high school:

• Laundry is not that complicated.
• I really don’t like ice cream very much.
• Everybody struggles with something (this was a major epiphany), some people are just better at coping with their struggles than others.
• I am much better suited for teaching than I ever would have been for taking care of sick people.
• “Bad boys” are lame.
• Perfume should be worn everyday.  Saving it for special occasions is absurd.  (Side note:  This is not true for all people but is definitely true for me.)
• Coffee is amazing for its powers to be both stimulating and soothing…oh, and delicious, too.
• Washington is my favorite place to be.  I’m not sure if I will ever have the opportunity to live there again, but it’s nice to know that I will always have friends there who will take me in whenever I need to visit.
• You are never too young to fall in love–BUT sometimes dependence, intense attraction, trying to live up to certain standards, and other things can disguise themselves as love.  It’s important to know the difference.
• Cooking is the best way that I know to clear my mind and truly be in the moment.
• You never regret a workout.
• Finally, things get hard and then they get good again and then they get wonderful and then they plummet back to hard.  This is normal.  But you have to talk about it to people you trust (something I have to relearn EVERY time I deal with the hard) and you have to turn the lessons you learn into a strength.  It will always get good again if you give it time.