My Boys of Summer

When I was in fourth grade, I had a lot of expectations for myself. I was going to be an artist, a Sorbonne graduate, feeding my love of drawing the citizens of "Blob Town" and other such fancies. I planned on marrying at 35 to a childhood sweetheart who'd be the Leonardo DiCaprio to my Kate Winslet. Things would be perfect and PG in our little family. When I was in fifth grade, my life became R-rated with things I didn't expect, the ch-ch-changes brought on by puberty and bad company, the newfound disbelief in My Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. There's nothing like a fifth grader who drops the F-bomb like hydrogen. I fell in love with anime, with the Goth pseudo-sub-culture, with words and history, and most importantly, a boy I met on the internet. And even though most of those things now plague my memory like a blood stain, it's so incredibly weird to see what expectations I've hit and missed. I didn't expect to end up at fourteen years old, dreaming of looking out over an awestruck arena as I sang to them the rhymes and clever banters right from my soul. I especially didn't expect to ever say "rhymes and clever banters right from my soul" aloud, because I didn't believe my soul was something public and raw as I now believe it to be. The weirdest thing, though, is the intensity that remains whenever I produce something heart-wrenching. I am constantly startled by the feeling I get after performing, or writing, or believing in myself. That I'm aspiring to these things, that they seem so close, it's so weird.

And now, as I stand on the edge of a major transition, I recall that girl in fourth grade, standing on the edge of her own transition, the dewdrops in her eyes watching the brick and mortar pull away forever. She wanted to achieve and she wanted to be that smartest girl in class and the winner of spelling competitions, and now she wants to make a name for herself. But she misses that brick and mortar. Her memory's calling out to see again the grass field's patchy, toothy indignation. The blacktop's gravelly throat holding either skating rinks or heat-wave hopscotch. The new shine on the classroom's blackboards, with real chalk and clean erasers, and occasionally a big, colorful birthday message that always meant Krispy Kreme. And this ninth grader, she misses the smell of the first day of school. I miss the way the cafeteria/gymnasium smelled at lunchtime. I miss how the woodchips on the playground reflected the sunlight even when wet, and you could smell the forest scent waving up even in the winter. I wish I could return to the school year of 2002-2003 and its plaid matching headbands.

I miss the easy dynamics friendship had. I was friends with John because he liked ocelots and Lord of the Rings. He would either be Gandalf or Gimli, and I would always be Aragorn. I was friends with Tiffany because she liked Spongebob Squarepants and Austin Powers and Lord of the Rings. She was always Legolas, and when she sprained her ankle, we called her Legless. Tiff's still one of my best friends. John moved to Minnesota. There was another boy, his name was Jesse, and I have no idea what happened to him.

Jesse and I met on the first day of school in Kindergarten in 1998. He was a quarter Japanese like me, and his dad looked like Moses in The Prince of Egypt. Jesse was possibly the coolest friend a five-year-old could have. He and I were in the "advanced" reading group together, reading The Mouse and The Motorcycle while the others read Pat's Cat. He knew how to write his name in cursive. He was the first person I ever flipped off and also the Batman at the Halloween party where I was Batgirl and my "boyfriend" Kade was Robin. If I was the Sloane Peterson, Jesse was the Ferris Bueller. Our division of school only offered Kindergarten through first grade, so when it was time for us to move buildings, Jesse was one of the few who accompanied me to second grade. It was because of him that I became less the whore and more the comedic tomboy. I laughed along with the boys when Jesse had to kiss a girl in the third grade Romeo and Juliet. And then, when lunchtime swung around, I sat with Jesse and the boys in favor of Maggie and her gymnastics group, all girls willing to literally fly from the monkeybars in hopes of reaching the next level of their class.

The last time I ever saw Jesse was the last day of school in fourth grade. I wouldn't be returning to our dear school, I was set off on my way to SLAA, where I tearfully graduated not three months ago. All I have now of Jesse are memories, and that's the cruelest punishment I think humanity can impress. I never thought I'd miss Jesse this much.
But then again, I never thought that Kris Roe could make me sigh, or Rufus Wainwright bleating out Hallelujah could make me cry. I guess time's funny that way.