You've been sleeping for a looooooooong time....

I think it was when I was in 6th grade, on a church youth choir tour to San Antonio, Texas, the really cool high school guys (when you're a pathetic little 6th grader, all high school guys are super cool and you want to be just like the super cool high school girls), we'd have these really long bus rides on our travel days. Of course, some people would like to sleep on such a long journey (not me...i've never been able to sleep in a moving vehicle, i'm sure it has to do with the absence of my bed and pillow). These particular high school guys would target a poor sleeping soul, crowd around them and say with their loudest most obnoxious voice "You've been sleeeeeping for a looooooong time, 'bout time you woke up. LOVE CONNECTION!" and while saying "LOVE CONNECTION" they would clap their hands really fast. The sleeping soul would start, mumble something inappropriate, and then try to hide the fact that they really were feeling pretty special that they were singled out for this embarrassment. That was the same trip that Jessica and Nathan were dating (Jessica is now married to Manolo and they are about to have their first baby, and Nathan I believe is also married, but I haven't seen him in a very long time), and Denae and Chris were dating and breaking up (both of whom are now married to different people who we didn't even know back then!)

It's really neat to look back on stuff like that. Because those two super cool high school guys that did that... are both married to super ladies, have two beautiful little kids, and one of them is even the preacher of a church (and so is his brother)! Crazy! And of those two specific super cool high school girls that we tried to emulate, one I haven't seen in a very long time, and one passed away just last week. She died at the age of 28 after a long battle with lupus. It's good to remember these silly little stories, because they are silly little stories in someone else's memory too. On some philosophical level, i'm sure I could expound on the fact that memories are an element to live that binds certain people on a level far deeper than today's reality because it delves deep into the reality that once was. A reality in the past that somehow seems more innocent and beautiful because we were children and didn't know so much of the world's cruelties. And out of that innocense it seems somehow more real because that's the reality we'd choose to live in if we could.

Here's to memories! Cheers!