oh hey

On growing up, or really not


It was 2008, on some beach like all the other SoCal beaches, with some boy kind of like all the other SoCal boys, except his arm was around me.
It was my first...whatever. Whatever you would call a non-relationship with a boy you've fooled yourself into thinking you want a relationship with. Definitely my first arm-slipped-casually-around-the-shoulder-with-no-comment-or-acknowledgement. As if this is what people just do. So we're on the beach, countable days away from graduation and the end of it all. Or the beginning, but it didn't feel that way. And we're talking about the future in that half-terrified, half-intrigued way that seniors do, and his arm is around me.
Then there is this moment, where all talking stops and there's just eye contact and the ocean, and I know what's coming.
And it's like I'm just a kid again; they're expecting me to do something great like ride that bike without any assistance or climb the rock wall like all the other kids on the second grade field trip, but it just feels wrong. How can they expect me to do that? I'm not ready.
So there's the romantic, ocean-y, moon-y absence of sound, and he's looking at me and I'm giving myself a little schizophrenic pep talk in my head, and he gets closer and closer and that strange face is right there and--
"I can't."
[Pause where I wish it could have just been the end of the scene but instead it keeps going like real life.]
"I'm sorry."

He says it's ok. We keep walking, there's more ocean, more college talk, even more arm-around-the-shoulder, but really it's over. Really in that moment he became one of those people on the growing list of people I will try to avoid eye contact with in the Santa Clarita Valley. My First Non-Kiss.

***

So it's 2012, another senior year, and I'm at a bar.
I'm one of those people who has been legally allowed to drink for almost a year, but still feels scandalized by it. Like inside, I'm just giggling like "I just ordered a drink! And they can't say anything about it!" and still half expect those mall cops who really have no authority to come and bust me.
But I'm sitting at the bar with the same people who have been with me since high school, some even since elementary school, and we're still talking about the boy who swallowed a quarter in fifth grade then brought it to school for show and tell. He's at the bar too. That's what it's like in this town.

And then in walks that phantasm from four years ago, Anonymous Beach Boy. He looks like he's grown up-- glasses, scruff, button down shirt. But hey, maybe we do too (I mean, we have drinks!) And he's with some other people who I am officially too old and self-confident to be intimidated by. And yet...
So the new game of the night is the walk-by. Will we make eye contact? Chat? Ignore entirely? Trip in the heels we never became comfortable in and make fools of ourselves like in high school?
The consensus seems to be "ignore entirely." Clearly, we are too old and sophisticated to even remember the awkward beach nights of yore.
So we plan our route, choosing the back exit that leads to a frozen yogurt shop that we just need to visit, conveniently passing both beach boy and quarter boy.
We stand up slowly, stretch, prepare ourselves, aaaand strut.
Two feet, five feet, this bar is too small, I'm approaching his back, willing him to turn, willing, willing, and...

He turns, looks over his shoulder, and gives me the nod-and-closed-mouthed-smile.
"Oh, hey," I say without a pause in stride.
Level two greeting in guy world. Great success.

***

So what's the epilogue to this awkward encounter? I guess I'm writing because growing up is a funny thing and maybe an illusion. I've had a few more arms slipped around me, but have I really changed? Am I really ready to be an adult, or is every sip of alcohol and every encounter with a new guy going to make me giggle and wonder how I'm fooling everyone?
Maybe this is what the adults in our lives aren't telling us. Maybe it's all just playground games forever.