My sister and I used to have this exchange in exclaiming and shocked tones, usually in front of a) my brother, who rolled his eyes, b) my mother, who rolled her eyes or c) strangers, who would have rolled their eyes but who probably didn’t hear us since the my sister and I have legendarily soft speaking voices.
The reason I bring it up is that I was reminded of it by reaquainting myself with an old friend of mine, Jean-Bernard, who I met while overseas and who lives in France and recently chastised me in not keeping up my study of the language (by chastised, I mean of course that he asked me how it was going and I inwardly cringed and said “It isn’t.”) I hadn’t spoken to him in ages before two nights ago, but on the chance meeting of the two of us both signed in on Facebook (lucky for me I wasn’t sleeping at four in the morning (as usual)) we were able to have one of those good old fashioned catch up conversations about all the grown up things we’re both doing, rife with “and how’s your blank?”s and “wow, can you believe it’s been blank amount of time?”s and “remember when we used to blank till blank happened? Those were the days!”s. Ahhh, the joys of remembered time . . .
Strangely enough, I also met up with another former compatriot this Saturday past. Rob, a highschool chum whom I haven’t seen since his wedding in 2007, turns thirty in two days and his wife threw him a surprise party at his parent’s place. It was surreal almost driving down those same streets I’d seen the end of a hundred times between the ages of fourteen and twenty. And there, again, at the end of them was the same side door through the laundry room, the same giant window across from the second floor landing, the same t.v. cabinet where Rob and I had watched the shaky videos of our highschool plays. I remember being overwhelmed by that house. I remember thinking, “This is how people live?”
And so I state the obvious, what I state over and over again because I have some sort of overactive memory gene pumping my brain full of nostalia-tonine, and that is, Its funny how things change. And it’s difficult sometimes to see the good in it. If I had seen myself now as a fifteen year old girl, I would have been flabbergasted. I imagine I would have smirked a little, and blushed a lot, and thought to myself, “Dear God, I am never going to make it.” But as many people have said much better than I will, that’s why we don’t get all the answers at the offset. My mom said that to me. “I’m glad I didn’t know what was coming before it got here. I wouldn’t have gotten out of bed in the morning.”
Tags: nostalgia, possibility
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Why :’( ? I love you!!!