I can't believe that I am twenty years old. I can't believe that bellbottoms are out and that I'm a great cook. Can't believe how consistent the lookatmyelbow trick is for Hi-5s, can't believe how Andy Milonakis is the funniest dude alive, can't believe that I still don't have a puppy. I can't believe that I probably won't get one until I am like thirtyfive/not nomadic/lacking plans to be as such. I can't believe that Avril Lavigne isn't actually kickass and cool. What a traumatizing realization. I can't believe I haven't seen my paternal grandfather for over a year. I am so lucky to still have one, though, yes. Yes. My paternal grandmother sent me one pair of underwear folded up into a Valentine's Day card. I was touched, I'm serious, nothing like panties to say,
I'm thinking of you. You seriously can never have enough pink undies with sparkly red heart patterns. I cannot believe how girly I've turned out to be, and I can't believe how long it's been since I shook that "my grandparents are so0o lame" teenage attitude.
I can't believe that yesterday, when everyone at work decided to call the phone number as heard in an awful, relentless radio advertisement, a
real woman with her real voice answered right away. I can't believe that I always expect to talk to machines! Or that people only wanna speak in txts! I can't believe how long ago it was that I loved and worshipped Tara Lipinski, my babysitters, the babysitters from "The Babysitter's Club", and the main character from Sharon Creech's
Bloomability. Or that I read
Redwall and the rest of that awesome nerdy series. Or how long ago that I chilled at the clay mound at the Colonial Heights soccer fields/library backyard, ate crab apples from the nearby trees, and watched the skaters at the park there, thinking that they were so cool and extreme. Can't believe how long ago it was that I hated glitter and tights and boys, bought CDs at the mall, watched court TV and played Neopets games all summer with Nicole, lived with my mom, tried to memorize lyrics.........I just can't believe how things change. It's not that I am not taking growing up in stride, or even that I feel at odds with adult society any longer. It's just that suddenly, I have transformed, and so has everyone around me. I still very much identify with all my past impressions and preferences, but the people and places and ideas that inspired those first baby opinions mean something different to me, or don't exist anymore to me at all.
All of this snuck up.
One of my very dearest childhood friends is engaged. Lauren did always have it all together, but we were kids. Being on top of things meant: cleans room, remembers to bring snacks to the pool, doesn't ever have to run to catch the bus. But now, to me, she might as well be married, grown up, and pursuing a career. I feel so ancient, my past feels so distant. Because while I remain very certain about what Lauren meant to me in my childhood, that girl doesn't exist any longer. Now she's a woman, someone who is about to run the world, to put little people into it, to move for her career. Someone who does not let her hamster run rampant in her room nor paint mannequins nor fling soccer cleats at her sister nor eat popcorn after school. Someone who does things about which I know nothing.
My family moved into a budding Chester (ChEnon, if you will) subdivision when I was 8 and my sister, 6. Not knowing a soul for almost a summer was pretty lame, but there simply weren't any doors to knock on or scootering compadres to approach. Just construction sites (which ended up being pretty opportune later on).
By summer's end though, the cookie-cutter, plastic-siding dwellings of our cul-de-sac were polished and perfected and the driveways finally paved. Two girls moved into one house, ages 9 and 7. We were to form the most tight knit group with the girls who lived 3 Doors Down (KRYPTONITE). Our club room was a 5x5 storage area that you could crouch into through my closet. It was a real club: we all had aliases and paid dues and had assigned positions. We walked dogs and drew on the walls and bickered. The four of us had an ideal dynamic. What made things so interesting was that we were all so different. We were young and acted as we pleased, pursuing fun with no notions of real rebellion, being creative and strange in four diverging ways, but within a dome of approval. The group's solidarity was sustained by our wholehearted acceptance of conflict. The solution to our lack of similarities wasn't to bolt and find some friends who validated our choices by making the those same choices. We were kids, and we didn't pay attention to the world at large, and that was key. Rather, our solution to the tension was to stereotype each friend's identity and use each category title as a nickname, therefore making light of how at odds the personalities were. Of course we weren't consciously mediating the clash in our styles and outlooks, but rather merely doing as children will do: finding the simplest, most peaceful solution to a potential problem before any issue can even arise. It's the sort of thing that happens on sitcoms: some odd group enjoys the company of its odd members, and so they will the social dynamic to work out, no matter what, and that is that.
I am not missing my protected worldview or my emotional blank slate. I am not missing the comforts of dependency. I am missing the ways of childhood. A child will not immediately locate someone just like himself to befriend in a classroom, nor will he derisively categorize his peers by dress and activity, nor will he be afraid to talk to a stranger. I am missing the intrigue that develops when you're friends with someone who is endlessly interesting to you, who doesn't share your values or your background, but who you like all the same. I am missing the outlook of my former self. I am missing the former outlooks of my former best friends. I am feeling distressed and annoyed at the way that social groups form now, around mutual interest or aim. All I can do when I'm annoyed is revert to my ol' strategy: blame myself and rework how I'm approaching the situation. I have to catch myself growing up and remind myself that the girls who lived 3 doors down aren't those girls anymore, that I'm not 8 anymore, and that my social behaviors have changed. I have to second guess my judgments everyday; if I'm not careful, I will become just another difference-intolerant adult, latently discriminating friendships away, sacrificing intrigue for self-affirmation.
I can't believe how long it's been since we hung out in that storage room off my closet, and it's confusing to me that we ever stopped being so close. When I think of Lauren, I cannot fathom what she's doing at this very moment. But I can look back at our shared past fondly, and try, when I meet new people, to preserve the attitude that once allowed our friendship to bud.
"I never had any friends later on like the ones I had when I was twelve. Jesus, does anybody?"
