just kids

As our teens get older and much much (less) wiser, I take comfort in the times like this. Times that they all choose (or don't argue about the fact that they are required) to be home with their friends instead of running around town with them, and embracing what little bit of their childhood is left. In the backyard. On the trampoline.

I, myself, have so many memories at this same age of all of us girls meeting up at my friends Leslie and Julie's house to jump on their trampoline. This is something we did every. single. day. We would jump on that trampoline and try to teach each other flips. We'd jump as high as we could attempting to launch each other onto the roof and then we'd jump as softly as possible. We'd sit out in the sun and do our homework on a pretty day. Each of us in our own little world, but still experiencing it on the black tarp. We'd jump as we quizzed each other for upcoming tests and boys and other weird teen topics - giving certain types of jumps for wrong and right answers. We'd jump in our bikinis with a sprinkler underneath and we'd dare each other to run out and jump in the snow. There were sleepovers on it (with pajama jumps of course) and I'm sure we even accidentally had a beer once with an accidental one-beer-drunk kind of jump.

So as cheesy as it sounds to say the trampoline played a big part in my adolescent years, it did. I laughed harder than I probably knew how. Maybe even cried a couple of times. But the biggest thing was that when we were there, just bouncing away, there were no grades. No peer pressure. No popularity. No zits.

Just air.