6th grade

This is a picture of my sixth grade class.  One of my classmates posted it on Facebook.  I'm in the front row, third from the left (looking glamorous in those big glasses).

I remember it so well.  6th grade.

Mrs. Swanson was my 6th grade teacher and I am a teacher because of her.

I'm standing next to my cousin.  We both--strangely--have almost matching sweater vests on.  We were both left handed and had the same last name but were otherwise different in nearly every possible way.  To my way of thinking back then, she was the success and I was...not.

That group is more or less who I graduated high school with.  A few of those pictured moved away and a few moved in to replace them but for the most part, this group of kids were in my life for 12 years.  I remember a lot of their birthdays still (it's a weird and useless ability).  Three of the boys pictured above have died.  Some of them were super popular and some of them were at the bottom of the social totem pole.  Looking at this picture, you'd never guess who fell in which camp.

Seeing the sweet and young faces of my classmates, I hope I was kind to them.  I think I was probably too caught up in finding my own place in the complicated social structure of sixth grade (which was mostly miserable for me) to think about being kind to other people, but I hope I was kind.

We were all-important to each other for a little while there.

I guess it's all made me think that the here and now seems so vital and like it's the Only Thing, but really it's not. People fade in and out of our lives with hardly a remembrance until someone posts an old picture on Facebook.

I just want to look back and remember having been kind.