Back Where I Come From....Ten Years Later!

My ten year reunion just came and went! It is hard to believe that ten years ago I graduated from high school!  So much has happened within those ten years!  Went to college, figured out my way, moved to Florida, was in a car accident, moved back to Tennessee, taught at my high school for a year, started teaching middle school, met an amazing guy, found amazing friends, and am living the life I always wanted!  

Me, Heather Taylor White, Tara Graves, and Annie Calloway right before 9th grade.

I've spent some time trying to remember what it was like to be in high school. Some days it seems like it was a time far, far away and some days it seems like it can't be possible for ten years to have passed!  My days in high school are really not so different from today! I'm still at school all day and I'm still doing cheerleading and coaching tumbling after school!  Funny how that works!  

Annie and me cheering our senior year!

My favorite memories include watching Dawson's Creek religiously, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, sleepovers at Annie's, the Midtown Drive-In, the Gravel Pits, and 58 Landing, swim team in the summer, parties in my basement that mom and dad let me decorate myself, along with some help from friends!

Sleepover Sophomore year, we stayed up all night decorating the basement!

Growing up in a small town was really nice, although I think at the time you could not of convinced me of that!  I had a great four years in high school! I couldn't be prouder to say that I am from Kingston and than I went to Roane County High School! I watch Friday Night Lights every Friday and I think I do it because for one hour a week it let's me act like I'm still in high school!  Friday Night Lights is what high school was like for me, for all of us growing up in Kingston!

While much of life has stayed the same and all the things that needed to change have, some things have changed that I wish hadn't.  I miss my best friend more than anything.  Not because she's not around, she is, she lives in Kingston, but because I never thought I would see the day we wouldn't share.  It's okay and I know one day we may be as close as ever! There was a time when you didn't say NoelleandAnnie unless you said it as one word!

Annie and me graduation night!

I miss other friends too, but I guess that's part of growing up and changing.  There was a group of us that were inseparable and now, last Saturday was the first time we had seen each other since graduation!  Maybe part of celebrating your ten year reunion is realizing some of the great friends you need to reconnect with!

Much of The Crew back together again!

Saturday night was one of the best nights in I've had in the last ten years! I haven't laughed as much or as hard or enjoyed the company I was in, in a long time!  I look forward to the next time we all get together again!  The funny thing is, not much of us had changed all that much!  JB had made a comment about my watch band from high school (I always wore a Fat Eddy's watch band) and today, I still have the same watch band!  I guess it's true, you are who you are and there's not a lot in life that changes that!  

I'll post more pictures and recap of the night in my next post!  It's a night I will remember forever!