Cherish past, learn from mistakes, move forward

There’s an old saying, ‘there’s no friends like old friends’ and I believe this to be a true statement.

Even though, I’m 29 (wink, wink, nudge, nudge) I still “hang” out with friends from my high school days. Actually, they’re friends from elementary school. We often take trips together including one to the Virgin Islands. We also get together regularly to eat and catch up on each other’s lives. We’re making plans to go to Gatlinburg and annually go to Cumberland Lake for a girl’s weekend.

There have only been a handful of ladies from college that I’ve actually stayed in contact with. One I communicate mostly through e-mail and on Facebook. I see my friend Sabrina regularly and we also talk on the phone frequently.

I hadn’t seen Lana in about 15 years and imagine my surprise when she walked into the funeral home last September when my brother died and time melted. While I had spoken with her irregularly by phone and e-mail through the years, we picked up right where we left off.

I guess that kids, homes, careers, hobbies and all the other things that eat up our time just get in the way of keeping up with the people who meant something to us at various stages of life.

I’ve been back to Eastern Kentucky University just once for homecoming and just once for a sorority reunion. That’s why when one of my sorority sisters contacted me about a month ago and said it was time to reunite, I was all in.

On April 16, there were 20 members from my years at EKU who gathered in Richmond for a sorority reunion and we had a blast.
Some had gained weight, some had lost husbands, some had gained several husbands, while others chose no children and one had adopted. Some were housewives, others were teachers, nurses, an accountant and a couple of interior decorators.

We spent the weekend reminiscing about the good and funny times, especially reliving some of our more notable pranks. We told stories that we’d forgotten and we went back and toured the campus, as well as some of our old haunts and even visited our sorority floor.

Most of those ladies, I’d have recognized anywhere because they looked exactly the same – a few years wiser, but their facial features and expressions had changed very little.

I laughed so hard during those two days that my jaws hurt.

As we waited for everyone to arrive, somebody said they couldn’t wait to see how everyone’s personalities had changed.

As the weekend drew to a close, I realized that no one’s personality had changed. We were pretty much the same as we were back in our co-ed days.

One of the women said she contacted one of our old pals who now lives in New Jersey about the reunion and she said she didn’t want to come back, because people had talked about her and she had talked about them, so no one probably wanted to see her anyway.

I thought a lot about that statement and decided I felt sad for her.
I’m always telling my 18-year-old daughter that as much as you can wish you’d done this or that differently, there’s one thing that’s for sure and that is you cannot change your past because it is what it is.

I guess the only thing you can hope for is to learn from your mistakes, don’t repeat them and move forward.

You may not be able to turn back the clock for a “do-over” but I think you can turn back the clock, even for just a weekend, and recall some of the times that made you into who you are today.

Jamie Baker-Nantz is the editor of the Grant County News. She can be reached at 859-824-3343 or e-mail jbakernantz@grantky.com.