growing up

This is it . . . this is growing up.

One by one, I'm going through every drawer in my desk, my dresser and my night stand. One by one, I'm going through every shelf in my closets. I'm determining what's necessary, what's good and then, the largest category, what to throw away. I was such a saver, for years. Now that very quality that I used to love is coming back to eat me.

every pen pal letter
every birthday card
every American Girl magazine
every too-small or too-big sweatshirt
every picture
every half-used package of stationery
every bookmark I got from a teacher
every necklace-making kit
every label-making kit
every Britney Spears and Backstreet Boys and *NSync CD
every shoe box
every Beanie Baby
everything

In the midst of all of it, I'm finding some rather intriguing things, things that show how far God's taken me. I found an old prayer journal. a pastel blue Hello Kitty notebook with a hot pink pen slipped in the side. I only wrote on six pages; I must have gotten bored. I asked God to make me less greedy, to help me pay attention to others more, to give my family some happiness. I prayed for my pen pals, for friends at school. I prayed for Girl Scout trips and for service projects. I crossed off a few of them; I assume they were prayers God answered. Beautiful stuff.

I used to tape old movie ticket stubs on my closet door. I saw everything from "Princess Diaries" to "On Cold Mountain." An ex-boyfriend saw the latter with me; we always picked the longest movies, regardless of whether we actually wanted to see them or not. It gave us more time for making out. In retrospect, probably not one of my classier moments. But that one relationship taught me more about myself than I'd learned in the sixteen years of my life before then. We learn from our mistakes.

We learn from our mistakes.