I sneak out to Starbucks  to type and write and find silence while sitting next to seventy five others having community and conversations all around me.  I’m pretty good about tuning out and tuning into my screen.  But, the other day I got sidetracked by strangers behind me.  Two teenagers, in pleated plaid school uniforms, holding hands across the table and mocha frappa frothy somethings held tightly in their other hands.  I wondered if they got dropped off after school, because they didn’t look old enough to drive themselves.

This reminded me of the week before when I was in line and another plaid clad girl wearing more makeup then me was double checking with the barista that her venti vanilla light latte was made correctly.  I tried not to stare at her young, perfectly painted face, and peer into her bright un-tired eyes, but I did – just for a quick second.  And, in that second I thought to myself, “what if there was Starbucks and cell phones when I was a teenager?”

I sneak out to Starbucks to type and write and find silence while sitting next to seventy five others having community and conversations all around me. I’m pretty good about tuning out and tuning into my screen. But, the other day I got sidetracked by strangers behind me. Two teenagers, in pleated plaid school uniforms, holding hands across the table and mocha frappa frothy somethings held tightly in their other hands. I wondered if they got dropped off after school, because they didn’t look old enough to drive themselves.

This reminded me of the week before when I was in line and another plaid clad girl wearing more makeup then me was double checking with the barista that her venti vanilla light latte was made correctly. I tried not to stare at her young, perfectly painted face, and peer into her bright un-tired eyes, but I did – just for a quick second. And, in that second I thought to myself, “what if there was Starbucks and cell phones when I was a teenager?”

What If I had grown up on the Internet; fueled by caffeine-free fancy coffee drinks?  I cringe at who my imagination colorfully re-creates.  Trina age twelve, 2.0.  Instead of typing notes on my typewriter (which was far more sophisticated than hand writing notes, à la elementary) I’d be texting them.  Sending them on Snapchat. Rather then chronicling my days in my private journal, I’d be posting my every five minutes, publicly.  My mom wouldn’t have had to show me how to apply mascara because hundreds of same aged strangers on YouTube would be there with their tutorials telling me all their tested tricks.  Feeling left out on a Friday night would not just be played out in my head, but in pictures on everyone else’s feed.  During the years when I was the most selfish, I would have been in the mirror taking SELFies.

I think about these things a lot, as I now have a jr. higher (middle schooler as we say these days).  I’ve been trying hard to channel my twelve year old self, lately.  To remember how I felt and how I thought.  What was important to me.  What I was afraid of.  I’m trying to remember more than just my big Aqua Net drenched hair and equally as big bad attitude.  What I’m trying to remember is the inner chit chat.  The chatter that never seemed to shut up.  I wonder if our chatter, hers and mine, is similar, very different, or the same?  With just a few details different like, Starbucks instead of Slushies.  Frappuccino for french fries.  And, texting over talking on the phone.  Some differences are big by the years gone by and technology taking us in different ways.  And, yet some ways are always, through the ages, the same.

Some days, I’d very much like to say no to Starbucks and confiscate the cell phone for always.  Let me show you about mascara and makeup.  But, this day and age requires that I teach my young ones how to maneuver the modern ways we communicate and commune.  We have talk and teach about the good, the bad, the balance.

Selfies, and Starbucks, sometimes.  Texting doesn’t replace talking.  And, photographs on social media don’t show the big picture.  Trying to act older doesn’t help you grow up any faster.  Because, when your age is older you realize your truest self is found in the ten year old you.

Do you ever think about your younger you?  You, then and a would be younger you, now?  Do you find that remembering helps you to be a better parent?  I’m no expert.  I’m learning to be a mother, just as my children are learning and growing up.  We learn and grow together.  One thing that remembering back affords me as a mother is compassion…..compassion and grace.  And, we could all use a little more of that during seasons of growth.