I am 16.
I find myself in a new world, and I imagine I might reinvent myself.
I am 16.
There is a boy.
A tall softish boy, dark haired and dark eyed, who walks with me and talks with me.
We meet every day to walk and talk and swim in the pool. I have never before lived in a place with a pool, and it seems a good sign. I swim in the sparkly blue water beneath the yellow round sun, and I am someone new.
I am a girl with a pool.
Reinvented.
The boy and I walk together in the early evenings, and I stand straight.
I stand straight but my spirit leans into this boy.
We walk without touching and I walk straight and sensibly.
Inside I lean and dream.
We meet every day to walk and talk and sit in the grass together. I have never before walked and talked with a boy like this. The space between us is new to me, and it seems a good sign. I lean into that space without moving, and I am someone new.
I am a girl with a boy.
Reinvented.
The boy and I walk together, and his arm is draped around my shoulders.
My leaning becomes more apparent.
We sit in the grass together, apart from the others. I have never been apart from the others with a boy like this. The space between us grows smaller. His kiss is unimaginably soft and tender. The softness is new to me, and it seems a good sign. I return soft with soft, and I am someone new.
I am a girl with a boyfriend.
Reinvented.
The boy takes me to meet his parents, not so great a walk from the grass where we kissed.
I am shy and nervous.
We sit together as the boy’s father barbecues food. The boy’s mother brings me a drink and asks me about my life. I answer not quite truthfully, and she smiles. We eat and talk and laugh, and I feel a part of something. The sense of belonging is new to me, and it seems a good sign. I accept their embraces at the end of the evening, and I am someone new.
I am a girl with friends of her own.
Reinvented.
The boy and I swim together in the pool. We walk together with our hands intertwined. We laugh and we talk and we tell stories. We kiss.
We make promises.
I have never had a boy make promises to me before. I make promises in return, and I feel the magic of trusting and being trusted. This magic is new to me, and it seems a good sign. I let his words wash over me, and I am someone new.
I am a girl with a future.
Reinvented.
Hopeful.
I wake one morning to the barking of a small dog and the glare of the mid-morning sun in my eyes. As I squint against the bright light, a shadow arrives to save me. I am relieved for a moment and then alarmed.
There should be no shadow.
And then there is a voice.
It is the boy.
Everything is wrong. He is not to be here. He is not to see this. He is not to see me like this.
I step out to greet him, and I see the confusion on his face.
He sees in an instant all the lies I have told and all that I have kept from him.
I grab his hand and walk the boy a short distance away.
But I know this is the end.
Even as I try to offer reasonable explanations, I turn with him and I see what he sees . . .
A filthy low-slung station wagon with all of its doors and trunk ajar. Belongings that spill out of the car and onto the dusty dry ground in messy fashion. A small fat white dog tied to a length of rope. A crumpling tent, swaybacked in the morning heat. A picnic table covered with dirty leftovers from last night’s meal of tuna fish and tortillas. Flies. More belongings strewn about the ground. Dirt. Dog shit. More dirt.
My bathing suit and towel hang heavily on a length of rope, and they undulate in the slight hot breeze.
Tears sting my eyes.
The boy turns to me and makes angry demands for explanations. He tells me his parents sent him over here to see what I was really like. He calls me a liar. He tells me that he and his parents are leaving, and that he never wants to hear from me again.
His voice softens, “How can you live like this?”
There is no answer and so I make no reply.
The boy walks away and out of my life.
I am alone.
This move to California has not gone as I hoped.
I imagined I might reinvent myself.
But I am homeless.
Homelessness is new to me, and it seems a bad sign.
I walk back to our campsite, and I am only me.
Someone I know all too well.
Still.
I am 16.
Oh, this takes my breath away
Oh, I am so glad.
I have had this post in my mind for a while, but it has never wanted to leave my fingertips.
And then today, it did.
Thank you.
Having to pay for others’ choices? Sucks. Especially when you’re old enough to realize that what is normal for you? Is not normal for everyone else.
I always hated trying to be everyone else’s normal. I was never much good at it. I’m still not. Just learning to care less, I guess.
Yes, I had many difficult stretches.
But this time in my life was very hard.
A promise made that everything would change.
I so wanted for everything to change.
It did not.
Sigh.
Wow. Just wow. There are no words.
There are so many things that we wish we could reinvent about ourselves.
Someone spoke to me recently of the past and what I would change.
There are things about myself that I wish were different.
Things I wish.
But my past has made me who I am, so I would not change any of those moments.
None of them . . . for fear that the change that would make my path easier?
Would change the path from there to here.
I like my here very much.
I feel exactly what you’re saying. You’re who you are BECAUSE OF where you’ve been.
I so love your sharing of your past stories. I really do. Thank you for being so open.
Yes, you have understood me perfectly.
Thank you for that, Jessica.
Thanks very much.
This is beautiful. You should be so proud of this post. The rhythm of the words, the honesty, the pathos, I am really moved. Well done. Also, I imagine, just from my own limited blogging experiences, that it is scary as hell when you choose to do something that is not all about sarcasm and laughter. But this is just wonderful. Thanks so much for sharing it.
I have done this sort of post before.
And I have touched on this part of my life before.
People who have read my archives might have a better sense of this story, but I tried to write it so that someone with no knowledge of my past could appreciate it as well.
I am glad that it worked for you.
Thank you very much.
that was powerful…..i imagine that was a VERY difficult time….and now as a mother, you must wonder how that could happen….i am SUCH a planner, that not having a plan seems like such an insane concept.
as hard at that time in your life must have been, it has shaped you into the person you are today. thank you for sharing that wonderful person with us!
My mother did what she thought was best for us.
She was in love, and thought everything would be better in California.
And in time, my life did change and things did improve.
But that came later.
But yes . . . as a mother now?
It is difficult to put myself in my mother’s place.
I love my mother deeply.
But this was a hard time.
i’m sure that looking back, it was a hard time for your mom to revisit too….seems that sometimes in this parenting gig, hindsight is much clearer than your actions in the moment! i find that to be true for myself quite often!
i just reread the post again, and i just love how you wrote it!
I cannot speak for my mother.
But I do think that I can safely say that this time I described did not go as she had anticipated.
Very hard for her as well.
I can only tell my story.
How remembering this makes you feel? Is not how hearing this for the first time makes me feel.
Describing what this makes me feel or trying to relate to what it makes you feel? Is impossible.
So this? This is me commenting about how I can’t even begin to comment.
Love.
So we will just have a moment of connection, then.
I use a lot of words here.
But words are not always required.
reinvented yet again. and i’m sure the boy was reinvented by your presence as well. with wisdom he’ll look a back and regret treating the girl so poorly, and hope and wish you were reinvented into the woman you are today. I’m sure of it.
I hold no grudge against that boy.
None.
He was 16 and we were young and silly and filled with promises to call and write and stay connected. He said he loved me. He was 16 and on vacation in Southern California.
He was a boy.
Just a boy.
No grudge.
Ugh. This hurt my heart.
Honestly, a year ago I probably wouldn’t have been moved to tears like I am right now. Funny how a new daughter has made every girl a little bit mine.
This girl deserved much better.
What’s funny is that my heart hurt for the girl in this story as I wrote this piece.
She is me.
But my heart hurt as though she was a girl I could protect.
Sigh.
Sometimes the thoughts of being someone else takes over. I’m sorry that he was so harsh. Sigh. Not like a kid makes those life decisions on purpose.
Real amazing post my friend.
He was a boy.
He was harsh, but I had lied.
We were both wrong.
And thank you, Issa.
Thanks.
I understand that. I do.
I spent my entire childhood wishing to be someone else though. Or in a different family. So I guess I get why you did what you did, more than what he did.
Love you, babe.
This is brave and courageous, Kris. I know you’ve shared parts of this before, but it startles me every time.
Well, then I have done what I set out to do.
I like it when there is a mixture.
I love when I catch people off guard.
I love that people don’t know what quite what to expect when they visit me here.
I am many things.
As are all of you.
I wish I could reach out to that 16-year-old girl and tell her she can reinvent herself, that the outer stuff is not who she is and will never be who she is as long as she doesn’t let it.
I wish I could tell her nothing lasts forever, good or bad, and the eternity of hell she is living in will be over someday.
I wish I could tell her never to look at her own reflection in someone else’s eyes, because the only reflection that’s worth a damn is the one you see when you look within yourself.
I wish I could tell her all promises are crap except the ones you make to yourself, because they are the only ones that are in your power to keep.
Hollow words, to a 16-year-old.
They have to be lived and felt before they can be understood and embraced.
Still, I wish I could reach across time and heal that girl’s hurts. Because although that girl is gone? Her wounds are not.
However, the love and validation and healing she so desperately craves? You are giving it to her now. Just like this. By doing what you’re doing.
Grown-up Kris can reach back through time and be the parent 16-year-old Kris longed for.
And now I have goosebumps.
Thank you for sharing that part of yourself.
As you say, your words would ring hollow to 16 year old me.
But 44 year old me is in tears.
Yes, it has taken a lifetime of living and feeling to be able to embrace and understand what you have said here today.
I am so happy to have lived the years from there to here.
Thank you so very much for your words.
Me.
Marvelous writing, Kris.
The way you allow the sunrise to come, foreshading bad weather, but letting me hope for warmth and lightness and safety, it astounds me. You have a unique gift. Thank you for sharing it.
Bill
Hello, Bill.
That you are here today to read this?
That means everything to me.
Thank you.
Kris
Holy shit!
I am somewhat speechless. That was a very well written story. So much emotion.
Did you just say Holy shit?
And then you are speechless?
Ben, I am surprised at you.
Thank you.
As if being 16 wasn’t hard enough… having all that newness happen then taken away would have been a killer.
I know they say that you ARE everything you have lived thru but damn!
M
A long time ago.
But yes . . . I am everything I have lived.
Yes, I so am.
I read that and decided it didn’t sound right… it sounded superficial to me so I wandered away and thought of how to delete it but then it hit me – I had missed a part of my thought (my kids distract me harder than my brain can keep a thought)
All that newness and hope being crushed like that, so fast, so hard would have made your situation at the time just that much harder to deal with. Nothing hurts like seeing something good then waking up to your reality and having to deal with it again.
My parents divorced when I was 10 – it was a GOOD divorce (as in she should have done it years before because They were just not good) but as a 14 yr old I went to my boyfriends and saw his parents. They behaved like the loving, healthy couple they were – they touched and talked. There was no screaming, no threats, no pain in how they held themselves when the other walked into the room. I saw how life as a couple should be and then went home. It made it hard for me to walk into my house for a while afterwards. My father would do a visit that would end in tears, threats and screaming and I would sit in the middle of it all and wonder why me? Why my world couldn’t be just a bit more normal.
I’m only hoping I got this part in before you read the top part where I don’t think it sounds right.
I thought your first comment was fine, babe. But I am so glad you came back. Growing up, I was ALWAYS aware at how NOT like other families our family was. Exactly as you say.
And when my mother divorced my father, I thought things would get better.
Instead they just got different.
Not better.
And when my mother announced we were all moving to California, I let a small part of me believe that now was the moment. That it would all be better starting now.
It was not better.
It was just different.
And never normal.
Yeah.
Thank you, Mishelle, for coming back.
I love that you did that.
I will probably have to come back and comment lengthily later but right now I just had to say that I love the multiple meanings that can be found in your simple little one word title.
Love details like that.
And I love that someone notices my details.
I usually have a title before I start writing.
I did have a title for this piece when I started writing.
Finished the piece, typed in the title as I was about to publish . . . and didn’t like it.
Stared at it.
Thought for a minute.
And then I had a much better idea.
Thank you for noticing my details.