Missing things

There are some things in life that just flip some switch in my brain that makes me miss the past.

There are people in my life that I sometimes think about and miss and ache for. But even if we tried to be friends now, it wouldn't work. Thanks to facebook I can "keep in touch" with a lot of people from my past, but some don't have facebook. I remember before facebook, myspace, and xanga, we would write real e-mails. E-mails about your life. And before that (and during that time), we wrote letters, even when we saw each other every day.

I miss my middle and high school years in youth group where everybody else's parents were also your own, we spent every holiday and free day off of school together, and went on trips that gave you that emotional high on God. I miss my high school girl friends, sitting in the chorus room before school every morning, going to prom together, and sharing lockers even when we weren't supposed to. I miss my high school teachers who cared as much as they taught, and when I found the teachers who were Christians I looked to them for wisdom and guidance.

And oh, those times in Kenya. The kids who could hardly speak english still managed to ask why I had "spots" on me (freckles), and ran their hands through my hair in confusion because they either shaved their heads to keep clean or had corse hair. The pure joy on their face when we handed them a backpack with simple school and home items can't be described in words or pictures. The videos I took do some justice. Their eagerness to sing to us and give us warm soda and hold our hands stick in my mind. And of course the adults we worked with over there were so welcoming and warm.

I miss baby-sitting kids who are too old to be baby-sat now, and some who have moved away. I miss sleepovers, because even when you were tired you still laid in bed and talked to each other for another 30 minutes about the most important stuff of the whole night simply because the darkness seems to seem safer when the conversations are more important. I miss long conversations at Starbucks, church offices, fast food restaurants, and other random places with people who changed my perspective on life. I miss my extended family in Washington state with their lifestyle so different than mine but still in a beautiful way.

The funny thing is... sometimes I can realize what I will miss some day about what I'm living through right now. Thursday night bible studies, certain friends, Slovakia, and more. It's hard sometimes to fully take in what is good in your life at the moment without taking it for granted. But... I try.