This first picture is me with my mother when I was in eighth grade. My Mama was one in a million. As I look at this picture, all faded and discolored I can still remember the day this photo was taken. The picture on the wall behind us now hangs over my bed. The ceramic bowl with the fern in it my Mother made in her ceramics class. The sofa we are sitting on was reupholstered by her. The outfit she has on she sewed herself...I still remember going to Hancock's Fabrics where she bought that green polka dot jersey material her shirt is made from.
Skip to high school. When this picture was taken my Mother had been dead less than nine months.
I was a cheerleader (captain no less) and still playing the French Horn in the band , trying to be a normal teen. It's hard to do that when nine months earlier you watched your Mother collapse while out school shopping with you and your sister.
I was a "mean" girl in high school. I didn't think so then, but ran with the popular crowd and had no qualms about making fun of and picking on kids that were less popular than me. 
When I was in my mid twenties I realized what it takes to make a person "Good".
When I was in my mid twenties I realized what it takes to make a person "Good".High School becomes the kindergarten of your life.
You are now on your own and high school seems so far in the past... a trivial memory at best. I had been to college, studied partying and dancing for over two years and woke up to realize I was an adult with adult responsibilities.
I realized that when I was a teen, I thought just being captain of the cheerleader squad was something to put on a future resume and would make people go "Really?...You're hired!"
Boy was I wrong.
Life is more along the lines of this:
Elementary school is sitting in a walker, bumping into walls and your movement is limited and monitored.
High school is training wheels... you wobble but finally get going and think you are tough stuff once you can ride on two wheels.
College is a skate board...you go as fast as you can and think nothing bad will happen.
Adulthood smacks you in the face like a hammer and can stop you cold.
It's then that you step back and look at how you have lived your life so far and how you WANT to live your life from that point forward.
It's when hard decisions are made and when you realize being popular doesn't pay the bills...and why didn't anyone warn you about how tough life really is?
I have often looked back on my high school days and wish I had been different. I wish I had been nicer to people who didn't run in my crowd. I wish I hadn't made fun of people less fortunate than me.
I wish I would have realized, at the young age of 17 that we ARE all the same...we are human beings and all have the same wants desires and feelings, no matter what our circumstances may be.
I am now at the half century mark.
I have been on top and I have been lower than low. What I have finally grasped is that it isn't how much money you have or what you accomplish...it is WHAT KIND OF PERSON YOU ARE.
I wasn't a great person in high school...I thought I was, but I was using the wrong calculations of what makes a person great.
At the tender age of fifty (ouch) I finally get it.
It's about Love.
It's about being the best person you can be. It's about forgiving others and hoping they forgive you.
It's about not judging or labeling people. Who am I to judge someone else when I haven't walked the path they have? Who am I to question their beliefs when I am chocked full of my own?
Each person is an individual and just as vital to the human race as anyone. It's what makes us a society and makes us all equal in the eyes of our Maker.
Take a look at yourself, WAY before you cock your head in question of another person.
In the end....(which I am far closer to than away from) it will be a short clip of your life.
We are all a tiny part of the human society that makes up the human race.
Choose to make a difference...choose to care.
To all the young people that read my blog...."Choose Wisely".
There are no "Do Overs" in life.
Til next time....COTTON
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