My parents are currently packing up their house in preparation of downsizing. Lucky for us, they’ll live an hour away again, so we’ll have more babysitting opportunities!

In that process, they offloaded a whole china set to us, which will be passed down to my youngest daughter in twenty years, and also asked us to go though the school stuff they kept for both my brother and me from kindergarten through high school. Keep or chuck?

My younger brother, not nostalgic in the least, gave the container one glance before he all but sentenced it to the dumpster. Meanwhile, I sifted through each piece, smirking nostalgically as I went.

I passed on almost all the report cards, awards, and art projects–even the ones my mom wanted to frame after finding them–but couldn’t resist keeping some of my earliest writings.

I’ll try not to go overboard sharing these with you, but this book I wrote and illustrated in fourth grade cracked me up.

Flipping gloomily… Flipping. Gloomily. Bahahaha. Adorable. This was before the days of adverbs and dialogue tags being taboo, of course.

This one from probably sixth or seventh grade is actually pretty decent. It’s a short essay called, “The Self-fulfilling Prophecy.” It’s typed, not handwritten, so I’ll spare you the photo.

I held the bat tightly and uneasily. I stared at the pitcher, seriously.

“Watch out!” yelled the coach for the opposing team, “she’s a hitter!”

The boy whose nicely hit softball I had caught the previous inning yelled, “Back up!” to his teammates.

They obeyed. I smiled, because no one had considered me “a hitter” before.

“Strike one!” cried the umpire.

I tried to calm down.

“Strike two!”

I became determined. I swung the bat smoothly and hit the ball. As it soared through the sky, I ran to second base. I was safe. I was a hitter!

And finally, who could forget the beefy completed manuscript I co-wrote with my bestie the summer before we started high school, which is at the top of this blog post?

Ah memories! They were a good reminder that yes, I’m in the right place, doing what I’ve always wanted to be doing. It’s a good feeling, and I think my younger self would be proud.