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.Thinking about my youth group days made me remember an older girl I had a heavy crush on(to be honest, every guy did), so I looked her up on facebook. She wasn't from my particular church, but she was in our youth group "network" where different youth groups from different churches would occasionally meet for various retreats and events. I remember I used to look forward to seeing her. And actually would sign up to go on certain retreats hoping to see her there. I know all the guys liked her because they all talked about it privately(I kept my feelings about her to myself). There were a couple retreats I attended where I started getting the sense that she liked me also(which I was absolutely shocked by). I was 15 and she was 17/18, and I couldn't tell if she liked me like that or if she saw me more as her little brother , but she definitely started taking an interest in me....this thoroughly confused me. There was one incident where there was some event at a hotel in the city, and she, for some inexplicable reason, grabbed my hand and we walked around the event and hallways like a couple(for a better visual for you, she was leading
). I will never forget the faces of some of the other guys as they creepily watched us from a distance(obviously very confused and very jealous). I'm still baffled by that, to this day. I don't know what she was doing. I don't know if she was trying to make the other guys jealous, I don't know if one of the other guys said something to her and so she used me to try to push him away, I don't know if she was trying to pull me out of my shell(she was a bit wild and outgoing herself, and I was a bit more reserved at retreats in particular), or if she was just being genuinely sweet. This was like 13/14 years ago, but over the years, she has randomly popped into my head every few years because of all this. And I remember her as this gorgeous, older, cool girl that baffled me. So, I finally decide to look her up on facebook yesterday, and I don't even recognize the person I'm looking at. She's no where near as pretty(okay, I being a little harsh...she's still pretty but just looks tired/beat up....it really took me a while to recognize her face) as I'd remembered and she has three children. With the oldest looking like she's at least 12(so, she started having children just a little after the last time I saw her). She looks like a typical mom in her mid 30s. It's just so strange. It's not just her either. I looked up some guys that I haven't seen in maybe 7 or 8 years(people I knew from college that I never speak to, but are on my friend's list anyway), and some of them look like fucking dads(some of them are dads). Bald and overweight. This is particularly jarring to me because I feel like I haven't changed much. I've always had a bit of a baby-face, I still have all my hair, I'm not married with children, and I'm still skinny...and I can't imagine having a family any time soon. It's just weird to see your peers getting old...becoming the "adults" we never wanted to be, while I seem to stay the same age(humblebrag). And I'm not the only one. I have other peers and old friends who look exactly the same as they did, while other's look like they could be our parents now. So freaking weird. I guess it's also unsettling because I'm getting to that stage where I have to really start considering whether I want to have kids and start a family, and seeing some of these people remind of that anxiety. Am I lucky or am I being left behind? I hate facebook.
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