I want a do over.

Man I don't know, where the time goes
But It sure goes fast, just like that
We were wanna be rebels who didn't have a clue
With our Rock n' roll T-shirts, and our typically bad attitudes
Had no excuses for the things that we'd done
We were brave, we were crazy, we were mostly
Young
Kenny Chesney, Young

I am on a roller coaster here.  Holy sixth grade.  Fletcher, my 6th grader, is exuberantly in love, then terribly depressed because he did not get on the team he wanted to...  Teacher phone calls that homework assignments are not being turned in, therefore bringing his grade from an A to a C.

I find myself reliving middle school all over again.

I was exuberantly in love, once or twice...

Albert was my first boyfriend.  I was in 7th grade. He was a cutie and a heck of a soccer player. And he lived in the same neighborhood as my best friend.  I would meet him at Godfather's Pizza and play video games for a couple of hours before dad picked me up.   Then I found out that the dirty rotten scoundrel was two timing me with Kelly, the cute new cheerleader at school.  I broke it off. I don't remember being to upset about it.

Then there was Carlos (names may have been changed for privacy protection reasons)...  I was in 8th grade.  He was in my Physical Science class.  I looked up one day to see that he had written "I LOVE CATHY FLETCHER"  in big bold letters on his blue notebook binder and was holding it up in class for me to see.   If I had been an animated character you would have heard the  love songs playing in my mind and seen cupid flying over my head hitting me with the arrow.  I was was caught, hook, line and sinker. We were in a state of bliss for several months, at least.  We were big time, or so I thought.  One day, while my head was in the clouds thinking about Carlos, I come to realize Carlos is thinking about Kelly.  Yep, the same cute cheerleader Kelly. On the day he broke up with me, after school, Mrs Rutherford, my art teacher saw me in hysterics.  "There are plenty of fish in the sea" she said, trying to soothe me.  I agreed, particularly the real pretty fish named Kelly!  I am not sure what it was about Carlos that grabbed my heart that year.  It is probably as simple as the fact that he showered me with affections that I was so incredibly unaccustomed to.  We did no show feelings at the house.  Mom was so uncomfortable with hugs you could feel her body tighten up.  My hand was never held.  I love yous were rare.  So this precious boy holds up a notebook declaring his love for me and without even knowing it, he saved this girls life.  It took me a while to get over the heartbreak.  Seriously, a long while.  I loved him for seven years.  But Mrs. Rutherford was right, there were other fish...
(I told Fletcher about how these boys broke up with me for Kelly, and his response?  "Thank God for Kelly!!")

One guy I dated was in the 11th grade, while I was in 8th.  He might have been the only guy I dated that did not break up with me for another girl.  And really, what were my parents thinking letting me go out with an 11th grader????  Eventually they became wise and told me I could no longer go out with him.  I yelled and fought and cried and begged, but they stayed true to their word.  So in typical rebellious fashion, I went out with him behind their back. Other than the smoking and drinking part, he was a very healthy boy for me to date.  Evidently one of my brothers saw me out with him one night and "claimed" I was drinking a beer.  Daddy loved that.  I was grounded for 4 months.  I am not sure I have ever seen my father quite as mad at me as he was when he found out.

I get physically sick to my stomach when I think of middle school and cruising on up to high school.  Such incredibly formative years!!!  I had absolutely no backbone and certainly no confidence.  I was utterly lost. I started drinking when I was just a year older than Fletcher.  I started smoking in the 8th grade.  Today, I get on Fletcher for not turning in a homework assignment.  At his age, I had already formed the conclusion that school was for losers and my social life was much more important.  There was a science class that had a paper due every Friday.  And every Friday morning I would duck my head in hopes that the teacher did not notice that, once again,  I did not turn in the paper.  And where were my parents then?  Didn't they care that my grades were so horrific?  I remember getting a slap on the wrist,  but I am not even sure they ever met one of my teachers, just to say, "What the hell do we do about this?!!!"( Just for the record, my stomach is in knots right now). 

It pains me to no end.  Mostly it saddens me because there was no core to my life.  As I said, I was utterly lost.  I needed a guide book to tell me the shoulds and should nots, the hows and how nots.  I feel like I walked around with a question mark hovering over my head,  feeling stupified and confused.   

In church today Rob talked about the parable of the Sower-  How Jesus threw seeds everywhere no matter what the soil conditions; rocky, thorny or rich.  When the seed was planted for me, the ground was thorny.  I lived in my uncommunicative home with my alcoholic mother and a disconnected father.  I felt sad and alone my entire childhood.  But somewhere, through my grandparents, or the sporadic church services, the seed was laid.  I knew there was a God, and that  he was very loving, but I still did not trust in Him.  But the seed hung around until the thorns were ploughed through and soil was put down.  And I am still growing. 

So now I have a child in middle school.  In a way, I get to start over.  In no way am I Jesus, but I can sure help plant the seed.  I can let him know that there is a place of comfort, first in God, then in his family.  He will know that we love  him unconditionally.  And from there he makes his own choices.  But without, hopefully, a question mark over his head, and with, definitely, the security of his family.  This time with a fairly strong back bone and a much more confidence, I can get through it with my head held high!


³ Then he told them many things in parables, saying: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. ⁴ As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. ⁵ Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow. ⁶ But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root. ⁷ Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. ⁸ Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown. ⁹ Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

Matthew 13 3-9