I wouldn't trade my boys for anything....so there!

It is odd what people remember of you, what footprint you have made in their memory. This struck me full in the face the other day when someone who had known me through elementary and high school heard that I had two boys…her comment was, “Oh, I’m so sorry. You always said you only wanted to have girls.” Now, this is someone that knew me well back in the day – very well – and whom I haven’t seen or had any contact with in a literal lifetime. And this is what she remembered about me – this casual, uninformed, youthful throw away comment that I wanted, if I had children, to have girls. And she held that opinion out to me as I had just uttered it yesterday. As though no time, growth, or maturing had occurred in the intervening years. And don’t get me started that her comment was one that tainted the joy I had felt in telling her that I had two beautiful, bright, engaging and unbelievably funny little boys.

This is the footprint that I had left. Not that we had spent hours at school, and later in the evening, on the phone, laughing and gossiping. Not the family camping trips I had been included on, or the insecurities and fears of adolescence that we had supported each other through. Not that we had managed to maintain a close friendship through a complete lack of shared interests, separations, different world views.

And that’s just the thing. What do friends we have fallen out of touch with over the years remember about us? And how is it that friends we had all throughout childhood and early adulthood can become people we don’t recognize, that we wouldn’t likely befriend now?

There are people from my past that I remember very fondly, whose footprints in my memory are warm, firm, and when taken out and looked at bring me back to a place where, even if I didn’t particularly like myself at the time, make me remember and reflect that there was someone else who did. But now I’m not sure that I want to re-encounter them, to reveal myself to them as I am now – for what if they too have captured a memory of me that rings false me, to who I am know, and who I know I really, truly was then.