Things I Used To Know

Things I Used to Know

January 27, 2015

By Jane Tawel

Things I Used To Know:

I used to know:

• My natural hair color
• What most abbreviations meant
• What I wanted to do when I grew up
• That you could always bring a peanut butter sandwich to school.

I used to know:

• The rules. And that if you tell people the rules, they will follow them. This included rules for driving, rules for classrooms, rules for pro-sports and rules for relationships.
• There is only one way to be baptized for it to stick.
• That nudity is only in X-rated movies
• What time the news was on

I used to know:

• That yoga is only for actors and Hindus
• That there are no Hindus in America
• That tattoos are for sailors
• That if there is an old person, a pregnant person or a disabled person and you are a polite person, a kind person or just a normal person, you will give that old person, pregnant person or disabled person your seat.

I used to know:

• That you could only run for president if you were a white man.
• That sunburns looked cute.
• That boys only married girls.

I used to know:

• A lot of telephone numbers by heart.
• That every thing was closed on Christmas, Thanksgiving and Easter.
• That a net was for tennis.
• That app was a typo for a type of monkey.
• That God was there to keep you from going to hell.
• That hell was somewhere else.

I used to know:

• How to roller skate backwards
• Who lived in every house on my block
• The words to Don McLean’s “American Pie”
• When to stop eating because I wasn’t hungry any more.

I used to know:

• To always carry quarters in my car
• How to drive a stick shift
• The difference between a trout and a bass
• Every TV show on all four stations at 8:00 pm Thursday night
• The call letters for all three radio stations

I used to know:

• No one who had ever been on television
• How to count back change from a twenty
• French
• Where to buy a half slip
• Where my children were at midnight

I used to know:

• That the best starting line up in the world was: Danny Ainge, Larry Bird, Dennis Johnson, Kevin McHale and Robert Parish.
• What season you can get what fruits and vegetables
• Why I was crying
• Why I was laughing
• That salt and spice don’t taste good when mixed with chocolate
• That the pain would eventually go away
• That there was nothing scary out there in the dark
• That you never have to go it alone
• That you have to share things like phones, hugs, TV’s, pizzas, feelings, warning signs, back car seats, front car seats, ideas, responsibility, guilt, wisdom, our planet, food, love.

But I know:

• That I never want to say “Now You’re Just Somebody That I Used to Know”
• That God knows my name
• I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings
• That you never know what tomorrow will bring
• That Nobody Knows the Trouble I’ve Seen
• I should’ve known better
• To know you is to love you
• Know your friends, know your enemies better
• I Wanna Know What Love Is
• I know I know so little.
• I know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are His; we are His people, the sheep of his pasture. For the Lord is good and His love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.