day 26, to the one that got your last pinky promise

Day 26. The last person you made a pinky promise to

Girl Scout Troop 78,

There were lots of promises made & broken in that last year–lots of friendships shifting & alliances cracking. I know a lot of the girls started to hate me. I know I pretended to hate them, too. I know we were all trying to be cool & dissatisfied with "the way the troop was developing." I know we all wanted to stop wearing those green vests before people at school found out & labeled us as something Uncool.

Screw that. We blew it.

If on the bus, instead of insisting that we all quit together in a last act of defiance, you had asked me to stay a part of it forever, I would have done it. It's a promise, made with both pinkies, that I would have been glad to keep. And when they started to make fun of us, we would just say, "Yeah? Well when's the last time you Macgyvered a Thanksgiving craft out of stuff you found while walking through a woods?"

Or better yet, "When's the last time you did something NICE for someone?"

My mom still decorates with the crafts we made–the snowman from a Pringles can, the pumpkin from a dryer's accordion-like hose. I still remember the chant as we dropped our money into the coffee tin each week. I still remember the feeling of getting out of the car at night & walking down the bank's stairs to our meeting room, the embarrassment at being the first one to arrive.

I still want to be a girl scout troop leader, if I ever have girls. I want them to cook grilled pizza sandwiches over fires & put pie filling between two slices of white bread & roast it until it's oozing & cook things in aluminum foil dutch ovens & help old people. 

To remember those we've made & forgive the ones we broke, I pinky promise to remember the good times & pass them on. To leave a place cleaner than I found it. To live by the Girl Scout law. To buy cookies every year. To not judge my daughter when she wants to sell enough cookies to win the highest prize.

I miss you,
Megan

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