december of 1992 me and my mom taking pictures before winter formal

in my church i am in the “young women” s program as a leader, secretary to be exact, for those of you who aren’t lds let me explain a little: the young women’s program is for the girls in church of the ages 12 thru 18, and we get together once a week on tuesdays to do activities and on sundays we do our lessons together, sunday school if you will. well one sunday i was put in charge of teaching the 16-17 year olds, and as most girls that age it was all talk about boys, clothes and popularity…as i taught my lesson (something to do with involvement in school, i can’t really remember, wow what a great leader i am.) these topics seemed to keep coming up. i kept veering the conversation to a.s.b. involvement and sports, and at one point in the lesson one of the girls raises her hand and asks “i wonder how were you in high school, were you really popular?” uh…hmmm…duh…i, i, i, hmmm…

so i had to think about it for a second, high school was sooooo…geesh, a faint dream ago? do i save face and say “yeah i was super cool, probably one of the coolest ever alive, best times of my life, and wish i could be 17 again”? A TOTAL LIE… so i panic and then i pay attention to the girl asking the question: cute, not super popular, does things to shock those around her sometimes, and i think she’ll probably make a really great mom someday, and a spunky wife. but pretty sure she’s struggleling with the whole high school thing so i answered honestly: “no, i wouldn’t say i was popular, they knew my name, i knew theirs, i dated a few of the boys in the “popular” gene pool, at least i think they were, a couple of popular girls really liked them so i guess that made them popular, but i worried entirely too much about that, i WANTED popularity so badly, that it made me shy, unsure, and looking back at it now, really stupid” i went on to explain that you always hear that the high school years are the best years of your life, and that was total b.s. (don’t worry i didn’t say that in church i said “crap” 😉 )i also said: to try to achieve happiness i would obsess over my weight and hair, i always needed a boyfriend to reassure myself, i was never happy, pretty sure i was depressed, and also i had an eating disorder. it wasn’t till college that i found out i was pretty sarcastic and i loved to make people laugh, i love to be around other girls that do the same for me, as time went on i evolved, i found out what i liked, what i didn’t like, and so forth, during these times of growth i found out that spirituality was huge to me, and when the time was right i found the perfect guy for me. as newlyweds i was still figuring myself out, as a young mother, still figuring myself out, as a little bit of a seasoned mother of 4, still figuring myself out, but one thing is for sure, i keep thinking “okay now THESE are the best years of my life… and i wouldn’t go back to being 17 or 21 or 28 or so forth” but i keep surprising myself, cause the next year and the next year to come (if the trend keeps going the way that it is) will be the best years of my life, where i’ve learned so much more than before, and i come to figure myself out just a little bit more.ever evolveing i guess. so yeah high school was defitnitly NOT the best years of my life, i don’t know why they mattered so much when i was in them cause now is what i would call the best years of my life, cause i’m happy.