The One with 7th Grade- Then and Now

As a substitute teacher for the district in which I was first a student, I knew that at some point I would find myself back in a former school. 7th grade was my first trip down Memory Lane. Not only was I a substitute at a school I had attended, but I was a substitute in one of the classrooms I sat in as a student. I could look out from the classroom, across the hallway, and see my old locker. It was strange how much looked the same, how much looked different, and how much I had simply forgotten over time. As a fun fact for the students in my classes I told them that I too had been a student in their classroom. Maybe I should have withheld that fact because when one student asked me when that was I felt like an ancient alien saying the year 1999 aloud. I then realized that those students were younger in years than the number of years since I had been a student at their school! 

In the 99-00 school year, the start of the new millennium, I thought I knew so much about myself and the world. My awkward and dramatic teenage self had no idea what was to come and where the next 16 years would take me. All I knew then was that I was in love with the boy who sat in front of me in English, I hated gym class, I was riding the school bus for the first time, my bestie and I were fighting, I thought I had a Jennifer Aniston haircut, I started wearing contacts, and I was having the time of my life making new friends and passing notebooks back and forth with them as well as making dates to chat on AOL Instant Messenger via my parent's dial up Internet. 

Much like my teenage self in the 7th grade, I have no idea what the next 16 years will look like. The difference between then and now is that I realize I am a work in progress and that I am capable of adapting to change, I have the confidence to try new things, and that when I do not know what else to do I can be a sub. 

Cheers to middle school students always passing notes and notebooks, even in the digital age!