I am Sixteen, going on Seventeen.

Or at least that's how I felt this weekend.

Cal and I decided to meet up in our hometown of Thomasville this weekend. Have I told y'all that we're from the same place? Went to high school together? Triple-dated to prom with each other, he with my rival flautist and me with his childhood friend/baseball buddy (and my former boyfriend of six years)? Anyway, Thomasville is just about halfway between where he lives (Fort Walton Beach; 3 hour drive) and Macon (2.5 hour drive); plus, both of our parents still live there and, therefore, we have free places to stay. It just made sense.

What I didn't factor into the equation, though, was how much being back in a dating scenario in Thomasville would take me back 10 years to my teenage days, the last time that I was in such a situation. Let me give you a few examples:

On Friday afternoon, my mother was out of town and my dad was at work, and when Cal stopped by for a few minutes to say hello before meeting his best friend, Brian, for lunch, I almost stopped him at the door to say, "Sorry, Cal, but I'm not allowed to have boys over when my parents aren't home."

I found myself catching my breath when I looked at my watch Friday night over at his parents' house and discovered that it was 11:03... the dreaded 3 minutes past my high school curfew.

We had discussions about where we wanted to watch the Tennessee/Florida game: with his dad, or with mine?

In spite of these flashbacks to the stressful years of dating so closely under my strict parents' watchful eyes, we had a great weekend. We went to our high school football game Friday night (my first since I graduated in 1996; see picture below) and I was caught offguard when a very young-looking cheerleader asked us very politely if it was our first THS game, and we had to explain that, no, we were actually students there 10 years ago. 10 years! I was able to have dinner Friday night and lunch Saturday with his parents. Was it a "meet the parents" type of scenario? I don't really know... does that phrase qualify if his dad was my 3rd grade PE coach? I got to catch up with Cal's best friend Brian (also a high school friend of mine; he and his date were the third couple on prom night) and meet his new wife over a nice dinner Saturday night. We had a great lunch with my parents yesterday after church, and the weekend ended in a very South Georgia way: sitting and talking under a pinetree by a pond out in the country.

So, for those of you who have asked, things are going well.

In spite of the fact that we're no longer sixteen.