A trip down Memory Lane

Isn't it funny how sometimes the simplest events become our most treasured memories? Sure, I will always remember the "big" things in my life...things like my trip to Italy, my first time stepping onto Red Square, my first day at university. But oftentimes, it is the little moments that I hold onto, that I remember, that make me smile whenever I think back on them.

I was up early today (thanks to a very unwelcome phone call from my private student who apparently was operating on the belief that I was most likely already up studying the past perfect or something rather than, oh, SLEEPING like most people are doing at the crack of dawn on a Saturday...but I will forgive him because I used to think my teachers didn't have a life outside of teaching either)...and wow, that was a very long run-on sentence there!

Anyways, since I was up and the sun was most decidedly NOT, I read for a bit in bed then checked my email. My mum sent me a link about Kate Middleton's bachelorette party (yes, I am a bit of a Royal Family fan) - it turns out that her last single hurrah will be spent watching Dirty Dancing at her parents' house in Bucklebury, Berkshire with a group of girlfriends.

This reminded me of a time a couple of years ago when I took the bus home from university one weekend. My parents were busy that evening so my grandma picked me up from the Greyhound station and I went back to my grandparents' house. When I was little, my sister and I LOVED having sleepovers at my grandparents' - we would watch movies like My Girl or How the West was Fun (Mary-Kate and Ashley movie!) and eat cheesies and drink pop while my grandpa made jokes about the chocolate bars he hid under his pillow. Later we might go for a late-night swim in the pool before retreating to "our" bedroom...it was so much fun!

This time, it was just my grandparents and I, and I was twenty instead of twelve, but I still had such a blast. It turned out that Dirty Dancing was on television, and since I had never seen it, the three of us settled in to watch it. Snacks were brought out, Baby was saved from being put in a corner, and a great time was had by all. It was such a spur-of-the-moment night, but one I always think of whenever anything to do with Dirty Dancing comes up.

Thinking about watching Dirty Dancing with my grandparents reminded me of another memory I have, perhaps one of my happiest (I actually excitedly wrote about it in my diary at the time!). It was the winter of 1999, I was eleven years old, and my family had just moved from Port Elgin to Bright's Grove. My sister, already Miss Popular at our new school, had been invited to a birthday party, and my dad and brother were at a Sarnia Sting game, I think...at least, something to do with hockey (isn't that always the case with my family?). So it was just my mum and I.

I remember we ordered panzarottis, drank sparkling lemonade (I felt so chic and sophisticated...something about it being "sparkling"!), and split a white chocolate Crunch bar while watching the TGIF lineup on tv - Two of a Kind, Boy Meets World, and Sabrina the Teenage Witch (wow, do I have a good memory or what?). I just LOVED the alone time I got with my mum, curled up on the couch together. I wasn't worried about fitting in at my new school, or stressed out about anything really...I was just totally, blissfully happy to be with my mum.

Sometimes I think we are surprised to hear what memories people hold onto, because they are usually just small, simple moments like the two I have just described. But later on, you look back on them and realize just how lucky you are, just how awesome life is in the very way it reminds you of what is truly important. Yes, big things are momentuous and and memorable, but for me, I'll never forget watching Patrick Swayze lift Jennifer Grey up (in a scene that is both romantic and wildly cheesy) and sipping my sparkling lemonade with my mum!