rewind and fast-forward

Friday, may. 12, 2006   |   0 comments

Thinking back on high school, I regret that I wasn’t one of the truly weird kids (though I’m sure you could find some fellow Tam High alums who thought I was plenty weird). With all the free time and unformed possibility of that awkward age of fourteen-fifteen-sixteen, I just wish I’d let myself indulge in obsessions more. Like the kids who saved up to buy a stunt dummy to use in the action sequences of their homemade movies, or who taught themselves how to juggle and ride unicyles, or who decided to learn how to read lips and ordered a book on the topic through Scholastic (like I did) and then sat down and actually did the work and really learned how to read lips (like I didn’t). What they were doing was just so much more fantastic than trying to beef up the college resume or trying to score a solid fake ID or trying on clothes or whatever it was that I was so busy doing.

And then I think: what if ten years from now I look back on this here floaty time of my life — so loosely packed with little islands of freelance surrounded by oceans of fun travels and meals with friends — and I feel the exact same regret? But then I get absorbed in baking a batch of terrible tasteless dust cookies (those Chocolate Lulus are a total dud), or I spend half an hour running around the house in a rousing game of string-tug-jump with the animals, and all concerns about future regrets recede into the happiness of my puttering.