I prefer to be the person that looks at life that the glass is half full, however truth be told, sometimes I am not always looking at things with rose colored glasses.  

When that happens, I feel like I slid back into my insecure middle school persona and wonder if I have any friends.  In the middle of 7th grade we moved to a brand new school.  I literally had no friends.  That’s what I thought at the time.  If I dug deep in my mind, I still had friends, they just were 1,000 miles away.  In 1976 they may has well been in Europe, phone calls were expensive and internet was non existent.

During my 5 years in NH, I eventually found my way and made a few friends.  In the beginning I wrote letters to my friends back in SC and they even wrote back! It was so exciting to get real mail.  I never really let go of my friends in SC, they were “my people”, I continued to struggle in making a life in the cold north.

After we had lived in NH for almost 5 years, my dad came to me and said “if you could live anywhere for your senior year in Highschool, where would you live?” I quickly replied, “Florence, SC”.  He was surprised and said “Really?”.

I bet he was thinking we could move to California, Colorado or anywhere else in the US and I picked a small town in SC.  Imagine starting all over in your senior year? I wasn’t open to that major change. He didn’t realize I never stopped connecting with my friends over those 5 years.

You hear the saying  “you can’t go home!” In some sense that is true.  The one thing I kept doing those 5 years was stay in touch by good old fashioned mail. Maybe it would have been different if I hadn’t kept in touch.  

There was something different in me, I was determined to prove that old saying WRONG! Instead of worrying that might be true, I literally ignored negative comments and just smiled.

I moved back ahead of my parents and sister. Stayed across the street from our old house. Picked up right were we left off with the Skinner family. Felt like I was home!

My senior year was the most amazing time of my life at that time. I moved back, away from a very academically competitive school to a more laid back school.  It was like I was able to take a deep breath.  

My first few weeks were awesome!  The only problem I had was someone saying “hey Carrie” and I literally had no idea of who they were.  I was the kid that moved away.  I remembered most everyone but not all.  That was hard.

I spent my entire senior year picking up all my old friendships again.   

Anyway, flash forward 35 years and I am now at least Facebook friends with my pen pals and still very best friends with Angel.  We have an amazing friendship that has continued since 4th grade. 

So when I start to feel insecure like that middle school kid that moved away in the middle of 7th grade, I need to remember to not only remember the friends I do have but to remember the solid and steady ones that are always just a phone call away.  It is so important to nurture your friendships and not take them for granted.