Priorities

When Elijah and Marinda were here last week (more about the great visit with them to come) he told us a funny story.  Apparently my Uncle Doug and Aunt Anne are on a trip in New Zeland right now and they took their kids (except Lindsey who just started her first semester at BYU) with them.  Hailey, who is a junior in high school had a major come apart when she realized the trip would be during the premier of the final Harry Potter movie.  Elijah said that she essentially told her parents, "I've been planning for years to get up early, watch all of the Harry Potter movies, dress up and go to the midnight premier with all my friends!  I can't believe you're going to make me go to New Zealand and miss that!"  

We all had a good laugh about priorities until Elijah interrupted with, "Well it certainly reminded me of someone else in this family who didn't want to go to Hawaii and miss Beach Week at Logan High!"  I stopped mid giggle and realized with a shock that Little Miss Ungrateful was me!  I remember so vividly how disappointed I had been to not be going to the Beach Dance the last week of my junior year of high school with all my best friends decked out in mock Hawaiian attire.  Instead, I had to go to Hawaii with my family to visit my sister.  Life can be so unfair.

Notice the empty spot in this picture?  That's where I would have been.

 We had a good laugh, reminiscing on how our priorities change as the years go by.  As a teenager, my friends were my central focus.  I feel so fortunate that I was able to spend time with such genuinely good and kind people.  We had so much fun together and as a seventeen year old I could not imagine a time when we wouldn't be congregating at David Peterson's house for a movie on Friday nights or having a girls night at Abby's where we would talk into the wee hours of the morning.  Those were some happy days.

But, like it or not, we all grow up - at least, I hope we do!

I have such fond memories of those days and still love hearing how these friends are doing.  However, I am so glad that I am not the same person I was then.  I'm even glad that I'm not the same person I was a year ago!  It's nice to look back and see the ways in which I have improved and *hopefully* matured. I definitely wouldn't complain about a trip to Hawaii now!  Thanks for inspiring some fond reminiscing Lij.