Sixth Grade Dreams...

I have kept a journal since I was in the sixth grade. Sometimes I like to look over that journal and listen to the thoughts and worries of my younger self. I'll never forget one particular page in that journal. I had split the page in half - on the left, I wrote, "Things I Love" and on the right, "Things I Hate." Under the "love" column, I wrote things like New Kids on the Block, Kristie Young (my best friend at the time) and Barry (my childhood crush). Under the "hate" column, I wrote this: war and Saddam Hussein.
On several other pages scattered throughout that journal, "I hate war" is scribbled as often as "I love Barry." My sixth grade self, so consumed with popularity and pop music, felt a sincere hatred for a man named Saddam Hussein. Really all I knew about him was that he caused us to be at war (this was at the time of the Desert Storm) and my new pen pal, Michael Porter, was in that war. I didn't agree with people killing people, and I was scared for Michael, so I hated Saddam. And all he stood for.

And now, seventeen years later, Saddam is dead.