Life and Looking back

Why is it that when we look back at our lives we think that things were easier. At the time, I can almost bet my bottom dollar that it wasn't easy for us. We think that life was so simple when we were in high school. Maybe we think back to a time when we were working at our first job, was that easier? Hindsight, the powers that be, say, is 20/20. I beleive that is true.

When I look back at high school, it was easier. No responsibility, except homework. My biggest responsibility was that I had to cook dinner for my parents and myself once a week. The cooking and the prepping was the responsibility. The planning, the shopping, the defrosting, the recipie, that was all on my mother's shoulders. While she was at work, I had to come home at around 2pm, and finish my homework. I had to vaccuum, do any dishes that were in the sink, and once a week get dinner in the oven. POOF! Then my time was my own.
I went to a friend's, I went to the library, I journaled. That is all. I watched TV. My friends would have us all over on a Friday or a Saturday. We would "play records" or cassette tapes. We would eat chips and pretzyls, we would hang out and talk, dance and sing, act foolish drink soda and laugh some more.
The stress came in to being accepted by those who were doing the inviting. When we were going thru it, it seemed so important to have friends, boyfriends or girlfriends, to have places to go, to know people when you walked in the door of these places(bowling alley, roller rink, movies etc)
Yes, it was simple, yes, there was no responsibility but really, can you remember that pressure to be accepted, to be liked? Can you remember how it felt that you were left out of the prom? or worse, the lunch table? I would love to live it all over again, knowing that it isn't all that important to know you have a date to the prom, or that you were accepted by the right crowd.
My friends and I weren't the most popular people in the world, but we were popular to each other. We enjoyed everyone in our group, and I can say that they are still the most important people, outside of my family, in my life.
I know that at a drop of the hat, one or all of them will be here to keep me sane. I have lived it, and I know it. Even if they can't be here in person, just that phone call or text is all that is needed to know that they are still "there!"
Yes, the pressures of being an adult is more stressful, but my point is that in any situation we face, that moment is the most stressful moment that we will ever know. When it is gone, it is gone, over and done. The next situation becomes the "it" moment, and so on and so on.
SO to say that life was simple and that there was no stress, is a falicy. Remember that at that moment, at the very second that the situation needed to be faced, it was rough, it was tough, it was stressful, but somehow, some way, the "other side" was reached. And onward and upward we moved.