Regrets...

I can't exactly tell you why I have been so reflective lately. It has to be the weather! I for one am not the kind of person who dwells on the past and wonders what if or if only! I do though have fallen victim to walking down memory lane and having it spark a memory of an event or of a person. I often find myself smiling as I recall something of my past. It's more good then bad that's for sure and that's why I love it so much.

There are always those moments in our lives that have a permanent place in our hearts and in our minds. Be it our first kiss ( mine was at almost 17!!! I know!!!!) or gathering up the courage to run for 6th grade President, those are the times in our lives that played an oh so important part in who we are today! Honestly... who would we be without small life experiences like that!

Today I put on a CD that a dear friend made me while we were in singles ward together! Just hearing the songs made me go back in time 8 years and I picture our time together! No we were never involved. I think that's why it makes my memories so found. We were extremely great friends with an understanding that we only shares. Maybe there could have been something there but life was easy just being friends and it was at that time in my life I needed simplicity!The months that followed proved so. The songs just remind me of good days in my past with my him... It reminds me of being hopped up on cold meds and him not letting me drive home one afternoon. Of wassail parties, singing, decorating for dances, Sunday School class and me "Soiling" my shorts!!! ( Not what you think!!!Trust me!)

That lead me to remember the first "tape" anyone ever made me. I think that's what you do in high school when you start liking someone... you make them a mixed cassette. This just makes me laugh looking back now. This was from a boy I had known for years. We were childhood "friends" more like annoyances during the early years. As we both got older we saw that we were more alike then we had ever thought. He ended up being my first kiss as well and I will never forget that moment as horrified as I was, it was great! Finally kissed! For those of you who always wondered why I can sing every word to "Summer time in the LBC" that cassette tape and that boy are to blame!!!!!

I also have endless memories of High school. My close group of girlfriends and I sitting at lunch together every day. I remember the dances... Asking Jeff Decker to my first Sadie Hawkins. I love remembering dances! Mike and I went to Homecoming as "Friends" and honestly that was the best dance. We were so good at being friends. Maybe that's why we ended up so great for each other in the long run. Homecoming was special. I was over the decorating with another girl and to see it turn out so well was exciting. That was also the night Jeff dropped me while we were swing dancing in the middle of a huge circle that had formed around us!!!CLASSIC!!!! Mike took me home and we had ACTS the next morning. I wonder if he wanted to kiss me at the end of that night! hum!!!

I do remember Mikes and my first kiss. It was exactly how it should have been ... that anxious flutter in the pit of your stomach that comes and goes all night long and then when it finally happens you are just as surprised that you didn't burst out laughing because the anticipation was almost more then you could bare. Once we got over the first kiss the rest was like they say , history. I was a goner and I'd like to say so was he!

There are so many moments are that are forever branded on my mind. The day my grandfather passed away, the first day of school, Dancing to "Foot Lose" in the talent show, sun bleaching our hair with lemon juice and slow dancing with that one boy no wanted to slow dance with at the Church dances! Certain things will always spark a memory or remind me of someone...

Red vines will always make me think of Joe. Madonna always reminds me of Mary. HB Harbor will forever remind me of a favorite grade school teacher. When I hear Dancing Queen I can't block out of my mind Youth dances and just feeling free and young. Denny's will always be the after dance hangout. "Down by the bay" will forever be the anthem my sister and I so enthusiastically belt out as we near Lake Mead! And wearing my lucky green socks only reminds me BYU football and giving birth to my girls... they were pretty lucky!

As I recalled all these found memories I asked myself..." Do I have any regrets? Do I wish that any of those events could have turned out differently?" And thinking long and hard I came up with a resounding answer...NO! It's because of each and every one of those events that I created who I am, my out look on life and the value system I live by today. I learned endless lessons from the friends I have lost. I gained courage from putting myself out there when it was so incredibly scary and risky. I have friends from childhood still today I will forever cherish even if years and miles keep separating us. I fell in love with a wonderful partner who bring with him his own past so beautifully compliments mine.

I hope I can live a life with out regrets, without wonder of what could have been if only. I try to tell myself to look forward to whats to come and not pass up something that may one day make me wonder "What could have been!"