glory days.

I have to admit; I am sucker for a teenage/high school tv drama.

I own every season of Dawson's Creek, I tend to watch episodes of Glee numerous times each, Gossip Girl and 90210 clog up my DVR, and now that the hubs gifted the household with Netflix instant, my queue is blasted with old episodes of Friday Night Lights and One Tree Hill. I cannot get enough.

But I have to admit, sometimes watching these shows gives me a tinge of the sadness and brings out my emo side. I can't quite put my finger on why.

Maybe it's the fact that they're overcoming all these obstacles and shining in basketball games or at state regionals. Maybe it's the young love fresh with all those giggles and "does he like me?"s that only new love comes with. Maybe it's the group of best friends that you get to see all day every day while at school.

When I was in high school, I was told "everyone says that high school is the best time of your life, but they're wrong; college is". Then in college I heard "everyone says college is the best times of your life but they're wrong; your twenties are". When I was in high school, I was pretty sure that the life I was living was the best it could be, my glory days if you will. I would later find out that the best was still yet to come, but seventeen year old me had no clue that was the case.

It's not a good thing usually when someone is described as "peaking in high school". It tends to mean that those were your best days, the ones you still want to be in and therefore usually forfeit some of your present by living in the past. And while I definitely wouldn't say that I "peaked" in high school, I do tend to think of them as my "glory days".

Let's face it; I'm never going to rock a soccer field again. Numerous knee injuries, a hip injury, and way too loose ankles have killed that. I'm probably never going to walk the halls of a building and have nine out of ten people know my name and say hi to me. I had that time. It was freaking awesome, but it's done.

I think it's normal to miss those feelings. To miss the high you get after scoring the winning goal or acing a Calculus test. To miss the butterflies you got when the most popular boy in school wants to take you out on a Friday night. To miss the camaraderie of a group of friends that spend every day together at school but then want to be together on the weekends too. I just don't think it's good to dwell on it so much that you miss out on what's right in front of you.

Personally, I can't wait for the day that BG is old enough to listen to some of my stories. When I can tell her that her Mom was a pretty darn good soccer player and people knew it. How when she tore her knee just a couple of games into the season and was out the rest of her senior year, the coaches and other players' parents knew our shot at the championship that year was over. How I dislocated my shoulder in a game, ran to the sideline and had the trainer pop it back in and was back in the game in less than five minutes. I'll tell her about being prom queen and how much fun my best friends and I had living in our small town. Oh yea.. she's going to have to hear the stories.

While I'm glad I didn't "peak" in high school and while I did go on to college and play soccer a few more years and had even more fun than high school, I still think high school might have been my "glory days".



But were they? Just for grins and giggles, I set out to Goog*le myself the other day. It took hours (I do have the most common maiden name on the planet) but eventually I found the old articles about my soccer games and academic achievements and all that. Know why it took so long? Because they were in the archives of the paper y'all. The freaking archives.

They don't really matter anymore. Let's be honest, if you see me walking down the street these days, you're never going to think, "Heck, she looks like an awesome athlete!" or "man she must be super smart!". My soccer stats and my GPA will never be on my tombstone. They just don't matter anymore.

So were those my glory days? Or are they now?

Are they in how I raise BG? Are they in how I share Christ with others? Is this my glory days?

While the past was a blast (ha), it is just that; the past. It doesn't matter anymore. Yes, it helped shape who I am today but at the same time, if you spend too much time looking back, you'll miss something these days. That is not what I want to happen.

I had a good time. I did what I did well and was proud of myself. I'm still proud of myself. At the time, they were my glory days. But now? this life? this raising my child and forming a family with Mr. P? this is my glory days. And I fully intend to rock these as well.