we did okay.

i found a binder full of photos from my preschool years,

lined paper covered in neat cursive

signed by my teachers, women who i remember the names of

and not much else. their voices were warm and the house

was refurbished, kind of, filled with children & play mats &

shelves of books never organized.

there was a garden, wild strawberries, a playground set.

there are pictures of me, sheets upon sheets of them, in

red leggings with tassels and white t-shirts drawn on

with pink fabric markers, with my three best friends of the time

(all of us the same height, something i laughed over for ages)

and with kids i vaguely recognize,

at the froyo shop just up the road where we would have

bi-monthly adventures, in snowsuits on those neon plastic sleds

we rode down the low ramp beside the stairs, in the kitchen

holding plates of lopsided pancakes we made ourselves,

wearing daisy crowns and our best dresses

on our last day there, our fare thee well, faces

split wide open with grins because we were older, nearly six,

ready to grow up.

i look in the mirror and my cheeks are red like the picture -

i'm the same person i once was, who was constantly found in corners

reading the same stained copy of leonardo the big terrible monster

to my friends, who laughed at everything, who led people

on quests through the two trees in the backyard,

who went to this preschool and who loved it more than life.

oh my god, little one, i'm twice your age. i've lived

your life over again, but i'm taller now and i have braces and i

hardly remember growing up. but hey, i guess we did okay.

i'd like to tell that small girl in those pictures, i think:

we turned out okay. <3