I went for a three-hour walk yesterday with Lisa. We walked all around the neighborhood, stopped to talk to our old girl scout leader and her daughter, and walked around the outside of our old school which is completely different than it was back then. It was an experience, to say the least. Took me back to being "Kelley Hornyak" for a minute and I got a little depressed, but I rode it out. Sometimes I forget how difficult it was to be me back then.

The weather later on reminded me of my dad so I felt like he was around, and that made me glad that I AM "Kelley Ann Hornyak"--the reason that I use my middle name is because he always called me Kelley Ann. Keeps me connected to the past, but always steadily moving into the future...

I'm sitting here working (or at least I was before I started writing this blog post...), listening to Paula Abdul's new song, counting down to NKOTB being on The Today Show on Friday... Two more things that take me back to those painful and confusing yet wonderful early 90's... and it just makes me realize that everything that ever made me who I am is still there. The things I've lost, the people I've lost... That energy never disappears and it never stops affecting you. There are parts of my past that I feel really disconnected from, but ultimately they're still there in the background affecting me, hopefully always for the better.

I think the sadness comes from trying to run away from those days, instead of looking at the lessons learned and finding clarity through them. I'm still who I was then, even if my memory is a little foggy, and even if I've grown and changed. All the change in the world won't make that little girl into someone else. She'll always be me, and some part of me will always be her... still trying to find a place to fit in, or just to find some solitude in the middle of all the chaos.

I feel a poem coming on. :) The story of that day needs to be told in that format.

Stay tuned!