27 February 2002 ~ Boiled orange juice...

When we were eleven, Julie and I hated each other. I don't remember exactly why. Probably had something to do with a boy.

On the night of my fifteenth birthday, Julie stayed over at my house. We played Truth or Dare. Somehow, we both ended up topless, giggling, and modestly hiding from each other beneath sleeping bags on the floor. Duh.

Julie: one of the only people I would speak to for my last year of high school. The girl I passed notes with in Biology throughout tenth grade. The girl who lost her virginity before me and reported back on what it was like. The girl who introduced me to Alanis Morrisette, back before Alanis Morrisette was cool. The girl who somehow ended up in a bathtub with me in a weird attempt to make Neil jealous. One of several of my girl friends who did their best to break Erich's heart. The girl who did drawings for my 'zine in high school. We thought we were so badass when the principal called me to the office.

Julie is getting married.

Somehow, I have a REAL problem with this. Marriage is so... ADULT. And after knowing Julie longer than I've known almost anyone in my life, I have a real problem imagining her as an adult. What happened to the girl who gossiped with me, poked around at astrological charts with me, introduced me to Monty Python, passed me notes in classes that said, "my sister was once bitten by a moose..."? What happened to Julie, the skinny-yet-lovely 18-year-old who made out with my stupid ex-boyfriend in my kitchen? Who spent a weekend at my house and ate all my food, but at least had the good grace to apologize for it? Who thought I was absolutely nuts for a few years, but who was usually willing to hug me anyway...?

Julie... with a spouse?

We'll never again walk together down Reynolds Road collecting candy on Halloween. We'll never again torture my music teacher with prank calls. We'll never again make such a big deal out of being badass. We're probably too old for that now. Well, in theory, we should be, at least. And now Julie's getting married.

The thing is, all my friends are getting older, and I'm not. Hell, I still look exactly the same as I did when I was fifteen. I still think jokes about sex and farts are funny. I still hate to smoke in front of my mother. I still listen to the Rocky Horror soundtrack to get to sleep sometimes. I still apologize to bugs when I squish them. I played strip poker less than two months ago. When I'm pretty sure nobody's around, I talk to fairies. I still fall in love with musicians, for gahd's sake. I never will grow up. Never.

One of my best friends from high school is getting married. On one hand, this should make me feel old. In actuality, it makes me feel very, very young.

What happened to nineteen? And twenty? Because I REALLY should have had more time to fuck around... I really should have spent a couple more years playing video games and smoking weed and having sex in other people's basements... Now I'm almost 22 and my high school friends are getting married. I feel like I'm about two years behind all of the people who are my age...

I knew you before you needed to wear a bra... When the hell did you get old enough to get married?

When I was fourteen, 21 seemed SO much older than me... When I was fourteen, I wrote Julie a 200-page letter, just to say I'd done it. I don't know if she ever got around to reading the whole thing. Now... 21 doesn't seem so much older... Nothing's really changed since I was fourteen, except I've filled out a little and learned how to bullshit a little better. Nothing's really changed. Most of the people who were REALLY important then are still REALLY important now. I still write people ridiculously long letters that they never get around to reading. I'm still a little crazy. Nothing's really changed. It never really does change -- much. Except that Julie's getting married.

Marriage, to my mind, is when you become an adult. See, my parents were married. And once you're old enough to do ANYTHING my parents were doing fifteen or twenty years ago, you're an adult by default.

Then again...

A young fellow in my dorm building proposed marriage to me several weeks ago -- to increase the amount of financial aid the government would give him. I couldn't really reply... On one hand, if I got married before next year, I'd receive SO much fucking more money from the government... And there's a chance, I think, that if I married a Washington resident and moved off campus, I'd really be living off the government for a few more years and I wouldn't have loans to pay back. Yeah, oh YEAH, it would be a good idea to get married...

...But on the other hand, aren't you only supposed to marry for love?

And could I REALLY love somebody enough to become an adult for them?

Could I really want financial aid badly enough to be a real live grown-up?

[Helena turns on her WinAmp player, which doesn't work very well, and clicks on an MP3 icon, whereupon the joyous sounds of Modest Mouse fill her headphones: "THIS PLANE IS DEFINITELY CRASHING!" Helena is pleased... Helena doesn't like to think about being a grown-up. Or anything static like that. Marriage? Fine, as long as it's just because you happen to really love somebody and you decide to wear some fancy clothes and tell them publically that you really love them... But if it means that, like my parents, you have to eat dinner at the same time every night; if it means that you have to become a proponent of vegetables and milk; if it means you have to start going to bed before 2 AM; if it means you've got to start renting exercise videos and hemming drapes; if it means that when you drink, you can't get silly; if it means that you've got to stop singing along with the jukebox, with the kid down the hall with the loud stereo, with the song running through your head...; if it means you can't go driving around in the middle of the night with the music up, your foot on the dashboard, and the windows down... If it means any of those things, fuck it -- I am not ever getting married. Ever.

If you can SWEAR to me that marriage still allows for the stupid things, I'll consider maybe someday doing it. But until I can be absolutely assured that I can still make gross mistakes, tell stupid jokes, and fuck around with shit my mom wouldn't approve of, I'm NOT getting married...

[Helena clicks on another MP3: a song called "Chewbacca" by Man Or Astroman. Helena is chewing on her headphones and yelping, "what a wookie!" Helena could never, never, never get married if she had to do anything like growing up in order to do it... Shit, Helena still can't ride a bike, for gahd's sake. Marriage? Don't you have to sort of grow the fuck up for that shit? I'm not normal enough to handle it...]

Fuck it.

I can't decide if I feel like Julie's betrayed me, or if I should wish her well. While I think about it, I'll wish her well. And then think about it a lot more...

~Helena*

"Why don't we just get married? It would solve a lot of problems for both of us..." --Helena's first marriage proposal, made by a boy who was drunk at the time and who would also prove unlikely to ever grow up...