The 11th is my mother’s birthday, so I had to go back to suburbia for the weekend for dinner, getting a tree with the family, that whole scenario. I made plans to hang out with one of the girls I knew in high school. That’s the great thing about moving away from where you went to high school (at least if you hated high school) you don’t have to run into people from that time in your life. Now, I’ve gone through exhausting steps to be a completely different person from when I was that age. I grew a beard. I started reading and listening to different music. I immersed myself in the city streets. I developed several well-formed vices over the course of the years.
But then came Callie, and I immediately turned back into that unsure of himself, bubbling, awkward fifteen year-old. The funny thing is, she wasn’t as obnoxious and abrasive as she used to be. Turns out the years had softened her to be almost bearable. She asked me about the girlfriend I had my senior year…that I don’t even think about most months, let alone talk to. We each other up on the other, traded drunken tales of college, talked about all the kinds of crap we were doing, and what had changed. And it’s always funny to talk to somebody you haven’t seen in a good eight years and exchange life stories. No matter what happens in those eight years, you can sum it up in short, succinct sentences.
We hit the townie bar, which was pretty empty until around 11, and then started to get packed. I suggested we get out of there and we walked to the parking lot and just talked for a little bit. There was a brief moment where I entertained trying something, but we just hugged and she planted one on my cheek.
