Ten years (and a few weeks, now) ago...
I wrote this a few weeks ago after reading through my old LJ entries. I sort of wrote it for myself, I suppose, but I thought I would post it.
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Ten years ago last weekend I went to the birthday party of a good friend (and first major teenage crush, but that is not a story for now).
I remember that night more clearly than I remember most of my own birthdays in the last ten years and I have no idea why.
I can remember, almost exactly, the sizes of each room in the community centre; the layout of the tables; the people there and most of the evenings events.
I remember the amusing things, such as an old friend, who had the best wafro I have ever known (side story: I was walking through town with him once and I man pulled over in his car, leant out of his window and yelled, "Mate! I will give you my left bollock for your hair!". Needless to say, he refused due to his already having an ample sufficiency of testicles. But I digress...) spending a long time creating a very long straw out of my many smaller straws in order to 'steal' the punch. I think it was also the wafro guy who taught me the technique of the 'strawpedo' that evening with bottles of Smirnoff Ice. As I mentioned, I was fifteen at the time, therefore cannot be judged on my drink choices. I also clearly remember one of my closest friends (who, amazingly, is still just a close) forbidding me from smoking weed as he was older, wiser and 'wanted to protect me from the evils of drugs'... Sure.
I had arranged to stay at a friend's place the other side of town that night. On the way back, one friend and I decided to go on a 'mission' - our version of a detour somewhere potentially interesting. He told me about an abandoned house at the top of town, apparently it used to be a sanitorium of some kind and was supposedly 'totally sketchy'. So, slightly drunk and not wanting to seem like a loser, off I followed. The house itself was definitely creepy, but totally awesome (I've always loved abandoned places). We couldn't get inside, but just walking around the outside was enough to terrify an inebriated teenager at 2am. After we'd carefully picked our way around far side of the house, we came to a sort of cliff-edge where the ground fell away from us. We stood there for the best part of an hour, looking out over the town and talked about all the wonderfully over-emotional things that fifteen year olds like to discuss at ridiculous-o'clock in the morning.
We made it up to our friend's place eventually, only to find that no one else had made it back yet. The house was unlocked, so we let ourselves in, crashed out (after writing a ridiculous and probably incomprehensible note, in case they came back), and fell asleep listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
After reading my old journal entry, I was initially consumed by nostalgia. I immediately opened Facebook, searched out my mission partner and sent him one of those messages you send to someone you haven't spoken to in two years; full of how-are-yous and I-can't-believe-it's-been-so-longs and oh-but-do-you-remember-whens. I haven't yet received a reply and, to be honest, it neither bothers nor surprises me. We've both moved so far past our angsty, teenage, co-dependent friendship. I'm sure if he did reply, it would be pleasant, perhaps we'd even arrange to meet and catch up, but I highly doubt that he would suddenly bounce back into my present life. I'm somewhat bemused that this doesn't make me sad either. He was an important part of my life for a long time but we both have other people filling those places now.
Quite surprisingly for me, it isn't the nostalgia factor that I keep fixating on. I don't think I dwell in the past as such, I'm not really pining to be fifteen again, but I do often mourn the loss of certain friends from my life. However, the part I keep coming back to is that I was fifteen at the time of this party. I knew it was around that time in my life but in my head, I'm more like seventeen or even eighteen.
Perhaps it's because I'm getting older, considering my future; friends of mine are having children and getting married, doing all those big, scary, responsible things that 'grown ups' do.
I might not be there quite yet, but I don't know how happy I would be to let my (currently fictional) fifteen year old daughter stay over in a town I didn't know, with a bunch of boys that I had never met. I assume that I lied to my mother about where I was supposed to be sleeping, that is a part I don't remember so clearly. I know that Mum always considered me to be the more 'innocent' one of her two daughters. I always figured that she didn't realise I was spending my mid-teen weekends drinking; learning how to make bongs out of drink bottles; camping on fields of rare orchids (that was a different occasion; getting woken up by an angry park ranger on a quad bike trying to take down your tent is fairly unforgettable) and discovering how hard it is to cook whilst stoned out of my mind.
On reflection, she probably knew a lot more about my weekend activities than I ever thought possible. I'm sure that in my teenage naivety I thought I was being terribly subtle. I'm also sure, in hindsight, that I wasn't at all. I'm also pretty sure that my Mum was doing similar things when she was a teenager and, much as it might make me cringe now, I'm sure my kids will be trying to hide the same things from me once they hit fifteen.
Maybe I'll be asking Mum for advice one day.
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My house smells like fibreglass; my housemates are making fake rocks. It's giving me a headache.
Cross-posted from Dreamwidth http://mongrel.dreamwidth.org/2217.html because all the cool kids are doing it.
---------------------
Ten years ago last weekend I went to the birthday party of a good friend (and first major teenage crush, but that is not a story for now).
I remember that night more clearly than I remember most of my own birthdays in the last ten years and I have no idea why.
I can remember, almost exactly, the sizes of each room in the community centre; the layout of the tables; the people there and most of the evenings events.
I remember the amusing things, such as an old friend, who had the best wafro I have ever known (side story: I was walking through town with him once and I man pulled over in his car, leant out of his window and yelled, "Mate! I will give you my left bollock for your hair!". Needless to say, he refused due to his already having an ample sufficiency of testicles. But I digress...) spending a long time creating a very long straw out of my many smaller straws in order to 'steal' the punch. I think it was also the wafro guy who taught me the technique of the 'strawpedo' that evening with bottles of Smirnoff Ice. As I mentioned, I was fifteen at the time, therefore cannot be judged on my drink choices. I also clearly remember one of my closest friends (who, amazingly, is still just a close) forbidding me from smoking weed as he was older, wiser and 'wanted to protect me from the evils of drugs'... Sure.
I had arranged to stay at a friend's place the other side of town that night. On the way back, one friend and I decided to go on a 'mission' - our version of a detour somewhere potentially interesting. He told me about an abandoned house at the top of town, apparently it used to be a sanitorium of some kind and was supposedly 'totally sketchy'. So, slightly drunk and not wanting to seem like a loser, off I followed. The house itself was definitely creepy, but totally awesome (I've always loved abandoned places). We couldn't get inside, but just walking around the outside was enough to terrify an inebriated teenager at 2am. After we'd carefully picked our way around far side of the house, we came to a sort of cliff-edge where the ground fell away from us. We stood there for the best part of an hour, looking out over the town and talked about all the wonderfully over-emotional things that fifteen year olds like to discuss at ridiculous-o'clock in the morning.
We made it up to our friend's place eventually, only to find that no one else had made it back yet. The house was unlocked, so we let ourselves in, crashed out (after writing a ridiculous and probably incomprehensible note, in case they came back), and fell asleep listening to Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness.
After reading my old journal entry, I was initially consumed by nostalgia. I immediately opened Facebook, searched out my mission partner and sent him one of those messages you send to someone you haven't spoken to in two years; full of how-are-yous and I-can't-believe-it's-been-so-longs and oh-but-do-you-remember-whens. I haven't yet received a reply and, to be honest, it neither bothers nor surprises me. We've both moved so far past our angsty, teenage, co-dependent friendship. I'm sure if he did reply, it would be pleasant, perhaps we'd even arrange to meet and catch up, but I highly doubt that he would suddenly bounce back into my present life. I'm somewhat bemused that this doesn't make me sad either. He was an important part of my life for a long time but we both have other people filling those places now.
Quite surprisingly for me, it isn't the nostalgia factor that I keep fixating on. I don't think I dwell in the past as such, I'm not really pining to be fifteen again, but I do often mourn the loss of certain friends from my life. However, the part I keep coming back to is that I was fifteen at the time of this party. I knew it was around that time in my life but in my head, I'm more like seventeen or even eighteen.
Perhaps it's because I'm getting older, considering my future; friends of mine are having children and getting married, doing all those big, scary, responsible things that 'grown ups' do.
I might not be there quite yet, but I don't know how happy I would be to let my (currently fictional) fifteen year old daughter stay over in a town I didn't know, with a bunch of boys that I had never met. I assume that I lied to my mother about where I was supposed to be sleeping, that is a part I don't remember so clearly. I know that Mum always considered me to be the more 'innocent' one of her two daughters. I always figured that she didn't realise I was spending my mid-teen weekends drinking; learning how to make bongs out of drink bottles; camping on fields of rare orchids (that was a different occasion; getting woken up by an angry park ranger on a quad bike trying to take down your tent is fairly unforgettable) and discovering how hard it is to cook whilst stoned out of my mind.
On reflection, she probably knew a lot more about my weekend activities than I ever thought possible. I'm sure that in my teenage naivety I thought I was being terribly subtle. I'm also sure, in hindsight, that I wasn't at all. I'm also pretty sure that my Mum was doing similar things when she was a teenager and, much as it might make me cringe now, I'm sure my kids will be trying to hide the same things from me once they hit fifteen.
Maybe I'll be asking Mum for advice one day.
--------------------------
My house smells like fibreglass; my housemates are making fake rocks. It's giving me a headache.
Cross-posted from Dreamwidth http://mongrel.dreamwidth.org/2217.html because all the cool kids are doing it.