Nostalgia

Today I went to the library.
I had intended to go yesterday. However, when the sole purpose for a trip to the library is to acquire new books for a 5 year old who emphatically refuses to go....what would have been the point!
This morning I had some other errands to take care of. Yes, by myself!! So, while I was out I stopped to get books.
While walking up to the door I was hit suddenly by a wave of smell that brought on immediate nostalgia! Before you even get to the doors of the library you can smell it!
BOOKS!
There is simply no other smell in the world like that associated with a room filled with thousands and thousands of books.
The smell, combined with the heat of an AZ summer, and I was at once transported back to my childhood. Trailing after my mother, along with my three sisters, into the welcoming airconditioning of the old Velma Teague library.
Times were different then. No huge fear of child molesters lurking. And so, my mother would lead her brood into the children section and leave us there with the admonition to find some books to check out. She then would go off on a search for her own selection of reading material for the week ahead.
I remember wandering the aisles of books. Looking at many, but unable to decide what to pick. Eventually, mom would return and ask if we were ready to go. She would then lead me among the shelves of books and begin pulling some off the shelves, telling me what it was about and asking if that sounded good.
Thanks to our mother we each developed into voracious readers!
As I walked the aisles of our local branch library this morning, selecting books for my son, I couldn't stop thinking about the glorious smell.
Maybe I scared some of the people with my long slow breaths, and look of happiness.
I wondered about the ability to bottle that smell. Put it in a pretty glass jar with a stopper. To set it upon a shelf, and then be able to breathe in the smell whenever I chose by simply pulling the stopper.
Perhaps as a perfume?
Maybe I should be a librarian?
Do all librarians smell of books?

I lied!

Yes, it's true.

I told a big, fat lie.

I said I would never join facebook.

I truly meant it when I said it.

So maybe it wasn't really a lie.

I just changed my mind, that's all.

Not only can I keep tabs on my children and their friends (shh...don't tell them I said that) but I have also reconnected with tons of high school friends!

What a blast!

Do you remember the drama of high school?

If you are a girl you know exactly what I am talking about. You are friends one day and then someone says something....

Suddenly you are not my friend today!

Reconnecting, none of that matters.

Oh, don't get me wrong. I still remember when there were differences between myself and some of these girls/now women. But, mostly I remember them as being a large part of my childhood. (Some go way back in to my elementary school days.)

When I attended my 20 year reunion (what? I'm old enough to have had a 20 yr reunion?) I realized that I had spent 5 days a week, 4 years total, with these people. That is a lot of time!

What a profound impact and huge part of my life they all were!

How fun to be adults and able to say goodbye to the drama and hurts of yesteryear, and hello my good, old friend.

Oh, and while you may be and old friend, you are not old!