Memory Lane

Whilst home over the weekend, I was ordered (by Mom) to clear out my closets since she will be moving in with her future husband in two weeks and she wants the house to be packed up and placed in storage while the real estate dangles in a buyer's market.

As I chucked possessions willy nilly, I stumbled upon a GAP shoebox filled with notes from high school and unsent, angsty letters to my then love object: Norman. The very Norman who is the current lease signer of the apartment I reside in. The Norman whose calls I return sporadically at best because life is too hectic and Las Vegas is too far--that 3-hour time difference. I had forgotten how utterly forlorn I felt when he didn't call me promptly at 9pm on those nights in high school I'd sit by my phone waiting to talk to him for a few hours before bed. I'd forgotten how much he'd mattered in the grand scheme of my life. I'd just forgotten the intensity with which I burned for his attention and affection--both of which are now free-flowing and therein under-appreciated.

I was leafing through my freshman yearbook and it seems every person that signed my yearbook made a reference to my then crush, Charles T. Rush. Trace's "What's the Rush?" and "T wants you. I know he wants you!" Talk about obvious--I hardly recognized then, what a spectacle I'd made of myself crushing that openly. I was never a master of disguise, be it emotion or intention. I'd hardly call it my biggest shortcoming but it's definitely not my strength. It was remarkable and shocking to trek down memory lane.

In all my post-pubertal quarter-life crises, I'd forgotten just how painful and tragic and utterly consuming high school life had been. It wasn't really all that long ago for me to have so completely forgotten, but I guess that's just one way to cope.