Friends and Fellowship: Friends don’t get friends grounded

This is the 2nd post in a 6 week series joining Ginny who is guest posting at Mommy’s Piggy Tales hosting the Young Adult Years version to record your youth.
This week’s Young Adult Years subject is “Friends and Fellowship”.
I’m also linking this up to Mama Kat’s Writer’s Workshop
4.) We’re too old to be getting in trouble…aren’t we?
Write about a time you were scolded…as an adult.

Summer 1997
Throughout high school I had a handful of really good friends. I never saw much of my friends during the summertime unless they were in band like I was. I spent most of my summers with whatever boyfriend I had at the time. After graduation this didn’t change. My summer continued just like any other summer, except this year when it was over my friends would mostly be leaving for college and I would be getting my first job.

This is how I spent the summer after graduation:
I got my really long hair cut short.

I helped out with VBS at our church.


I went to Florida to visit my grandparents.

I worked as the assistant choreographer for the marching band dance line at my former school.

My best good friend, Meghan, worked as the assistant for the flag line.

After the first day of summer dance camp Meghan and I were talking. A lot. We’ve always done a lot of talking…for hours. We had a whole lot to say to one another that day, so we stopped at McDonald’s which is right across the street from the school. We sat there and talked for hours and hours. I couldn’t tell you one thing we talked about that day. When we finished talking, I walked home. It was nearly 5:00pm. When my mom came home from work she was furious at me. She had been calling the house since 2pm (when I should’ve been home from band camp) and naturally I didn’t answer because I wasn’t there. I was supposed to come right home. She didn’t know where I was or if something had happened to me. I told her where I was and what I was doing. She believed me, but that didn’t stop her from being upset. So upset that she grounded me. For a month. When I was 18 years old. I was particularly upset about it because I was supposed to go away with my boyfriend’s family on the fourth of July. The grounding held firm and I was not permitted to go. And I didn’t go. I accepted my groundation. You better believe that I was always home on time after that. And you better be home on time as well or my mom will ground you too! (And I’m only 50% joking. She seriously will ground you if you don’t behave.)

Meghan and I would continue to keep in touch over the next several years. She was a bridesmaid in my wedding. A few years after getting married we would drift apart. Aside from my sister and cousin I haven’t seen or spoken to any of my bridesmaids in years.

I saw very little of my high school friends once they left for college. We didn’t write, we didn’t call, and we didn’t keep in touch. Things probably would’ve been a little different if the internet and social media had been then the same way that it is now, but they weren’t. Those were the days of dial up…if you were even lucky enough to have that (“not I” says Jenn who didn’t receive a dial up connection until The Year 2000). Those were the days before everyone and their Grandma had a cell phone (P.S. Both of my Grandmas have a cell phone and one of them is on Facebook. Rock on, Grandmas, rock on.). In the 12 13 years* since graduation I think I’ve seen my good friend, Kelly, a total of 4 times (One of those times was at her wedding, and another was just this past March when we ran into each other at Wal-Mart when she was home visiting her dad in the hospital.).

I haven’t made any new friends since.

*Edited to add: I have been out of school for 13 years now, not 12.  Perhaps they shouldn’t have let me graduate at all considering that I lack the ability to do basic math.  Me smart.*

(Since this seems like it ended on a depressing note, I have edited this to add: I am now Facebook friends with all of my old high school friends.  Almost all of them live away and some of us don’t have much in common anymore, but I love to see the pictures of their cute kids and the funny things they say and do.)

My Piggy Tales:
*My Birth Story: I’m always late!
*Ages 3-5: Dancing in a box
*Age 6 First Grade: There’s a bra in my lunchbox!
*Age 7 Second Grade: Bossy Wheels and Shady Deals
*Age 8 Third Grade: I will not talk in class
*Age 9 Fourth Grade: I didn’t really need those fingers anyway!
*Age 10 5th Grade: Nothing’s Scary in the Fifth Grade
*Age 11 6th Grade: Jenny Got Ran Over by her Grandma
*Age 12 7th Grade: Youth Camp Stinks
*Age 13 8th Grade: “Talent” Show
*Age 14 9th Grade: (N)O Christmas Tree
*Age 15 10th Grade: The Newsboys Wouldn’t Ditch Their Friends
*Age 16 11th Grade: Acrophobia Gets You the Good Seats
*Age 17 12th Grade: In School Suspension

My Young Adult Years
*Dreams and Aspirations: The Long Road There
*Friends and Fellowship: Friends Don’t Get Friends Grounded
*My First Job
*How I Met Cool Daddy Part 1
*How I Met Cool Daddy Part 2
*Colonel Mustard on a Rollercoaster with a Plastic Fork

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Posted on October 18, 2010, in Flashbacks, Humor, Jenn, Mommy's Piggy Tales, The Young Adult Years and tagged , . Bookmark the permalink. 20 Comments.

  1. It sounds like you are missing your old friends. It is nice to have someone to share with, laugh with and just gets you. Maybe you will reconnect soon.

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  2. Oh, yeah, I’m going to ground my kids too if they’re not home on time! 🙂

    I’ve lost touch with a lot of my friends from back in the day. It’s especially hard to keep in touch once kids come along! They keep us very busy!

    I love all the photos you included. You look so cute with short hair AND long hair!

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    • Thanks, Ginny! I loved the short hair cut, but my hair grows too fast & I had to get it cut again every other week. The maintenance was too much and after only a month and half, I started growing it out again 😦

      I’ve had my hair cut several times again since then so that I can donate to Locks of Love. But I never got that same cute super short style again…too much work!

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  3. How different that story would have turned out if only there’d been cell phones back then!

    I look forward to reading more!

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  4. It is sad how seasons of life change and people come and go. Meeting new people can be scary or intimidating at first and saying goodbye hurts the heart. 😦

    Stopping by from Goose Tribe to say, “Happy Monday, SITStah!” Hope it’s been fabulous!

    Kindest regards,
    Brook
    http://www.Matt5verse6.blogspot.com

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    • Thanks so much, Brook! I met lots of people was I got into the working world, but I just never met anyone that I got along with well enough to truly befriend. Too many kids my age were into the party scene and that just wasn’t my thing.

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  5. Okay – how’s this for dating myself. We didn’t even HAVE the internet when I graduated from high school. At least not that I was aware of! My hubby & I thought about buying a computer when we got married. The fastest out there was a 486KB Pentium. No gigs!!! 😉 Great memory!

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  6. Hello from SITS! I love your chronicling your past, what a great idea! 🙂

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    • Thanks so much! Janna has a great thing going with “Mommy’s Piggy Tales” and since my family can’t seem to get me to shut up and quit talking about myself constantly this is a great outlet for my self-centeredness, haha.

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  7. Your a goofball.
    18 and grounded, huh? That had to be embarrassing!

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    • Gianna, it would’ve been embarrassing if anyone would’ve found out about it…but I didn’t have any friends, remember 😉

      I’m am a goofball. Just wait until we get into the high school years in “Mommy’s Piggy Tales”, oh the stories!

      Thanks for stopping by!

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  8. Isn’t it funny how social media has changed life and friendships? Yet, I almost think our “back then” friendships were deeper than they are now.

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    • It’s definitely changed a lot of things, Nicole. I can’t really comment on the “back then” friendships since none of mine lasted…but I know that in the moment my best friends and I were very close. I certainly haven’t experienced anything like that since then. I wonder how different it’ll be for my daughter growing up in the digital age.
      Thanks so much for stopping by!

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  9. Wow! You had a tough mom! As a mom of teens, I’m thankful for cell phones that they carry so we can keep in touch. We actually didn’t have internet in our home until 1998 and it was dial-up. I loved all your pictures and the story they tell.. I love your short hair cut, what a big change that must have been!

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    • I definitely did have a tough mama…but I loved it. I’m one of those strict rule-following kids myself so I loved the boundaries. This was one of the few times I was “disobedient” and even in the moment I didn’t really realize it was that bad because no one was home & I’d just be alone anyway. Oh well, lesson learned!

      We got dial up internet in 2000. Cell phones are a life saver now…I don’t know how we ever lived without them!

      I’d had my hair cut shorter before (chin length), but never that extreme. I almost cried…but I got a lot of compliments on the hair cut, so that made it easier 😉

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  10. I think we must have graduated the same year, and I often wonder if I would have kept in touch with friends better if the internet would have been then what it is now.

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  11. your mom is hard core! 🙂

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