With a brand new year days into fruition, most folks are about change, progress and forward movement…..as they should be. But it doesn’t hurt to revisit, or even revel in, happy moments from the past.

That was a goal that I achieved earlier this week with a girlfriend luncheon at Firewheel mall. Margie and Heather were two classmates I shared P.E. class with in a middle school I attended in Mesquite. I would list our campus here by name except for two facts, one being that it appears the particular school no longer exists. The other fact being that, well, we spent so much class time on the risers giggling and gossiping that none of us remember participating (maybe we were graded by attendance and ‘dressing out.’).

The three of us were typical teenage girls: into our musical idols, the campus cuties and discussing our faraway future hopes and dreams. Our paths diverged away from one another when I moved to Garland during our high school years, but we became re-acquainted again via Facebook and decided to catch up again in the flesh before 2015.

Meeting in person again was a joy. Hugs were exchanged, we marveled at how slight our physical changes have been over the years—more blond here, less gangly there, glasses that didn’t exist pre-middle school—- as we dove into sharing our new lives and identities as adults.

We all have different locales, relationship statuses and career choices, but there were still important factors in common. Two of us have three kids apiece, two of us are married and all of us are parents to teenagers (Yet none of us have abundant amounts of gray hair, a major achievement worth celebrating in these times). It may have seemed like a regular brunch on the outside, but in that short span of time, the three of us learned from one another about hobbies turned into hustles, transforming painful experiences into a stepping stone to help others and how one of us became what she swore would never happen—-an educator.

How our lives have unfurled from middle school into the present confirmed what most of us come to realize as an adults: Few of us take a clear-cut linear path towards our occupations or destinies. One friend changed college majors repeatedly before settling into her chosen career, another is pursuing a higher degree and then there’s me. I’m the teen who grew up lucky enough to chat up a majority of the performers she listened to back in middle school. I even detailed Michael Jackson’s entire concert at Reunion Arena in the back of my tour program, yet didn’t consider writing as a plausible occupation for another full decade (go figure).

As the three of us left the restaurant and returned to our regular lives, I thought about the various lurches and twists in the paths we all took to arrive at the present. Hardships and setbacks managed to befall us all, but we ladies still managed to regain our balance and keep it moving. It’s the same with most people: all of us are still striving, growing and fumbling into who we’re meant to be. And with the right focus and efforts, we usually end up getting there, wherever ‘there’ is.

It’s far too early to forecast what 2015 has in store, but incorporating the familiar lessons of the past into the fuzziness of the future makes the struggles of the present easier to bear. So thank you for bringing clarity, Margie and Heather. And to every other ‘old’ and ‘new’ friend, Happy New Year. “Auld Lang Syne” lyrics aside, you are anything but forgotten.