Wonder Years

For the last few days, I've been watching The Wonder Years - its fascinating.  At my age, it reminds me of so many things -- the music they play are tunes from back then, the cars are period, so is the clothing.  And Kevin, the main character, is a 12 year old boy in junior high, the year is 1968.  The themes are all about the angst a 12 year old feels as they muddle through life's circumstances.   We all had those same feelings as we found our way through our first crush, school bullies, dealing with parents, our first dance.

Remember your first dance?  Girls mixed with girls, boys gave each other friendly pushes on the other side of the gym.   A few brave kids danced with each other, but most of the time, we looked busy getting punch, saying hi to other kids, anything to make it look like we weren't a) bored ; or b) wishing someone would ask us to dance.

We look back on those days and think they were good times, but living in the moment, we were full of confusion, questions and feelings we didn't know what to do with.  The drama we endured was all consuming in the moment.  Luckily, it was forgotten just as quickly as it happened.  

One of the best lines from an episode speaks eloquently about what these kinds of memories mean to us as we get older:

Memory is the way of holding on to the things you love,

the things you are, 

and the things you never wish to lose.