25 September 2000 ~ Six years; playing hooky; echoes of intimacy; and smiling... ...and Aaron the freak...

Today is the six-year anniversary of my very first kiss. Six years. It seems like so much longer than that. At fourteen years old, twenty seemed like an eternity away. Twenty seemed like I'd have a driver's license, and a car, and a job, and go out on dates, and go to college... It seemed so glamourous. And the 17-to-21-year-olds I knew seemed to have their lives so put together because their parents weren't running the show anymore.

It was my very first kiss. It wasn't even a real kiss -- just kind of a peck on the cheek. It wasn't even a real peck on the cheek -- he missed and got my neck instead. But it counted anyway.

Was walking down Main Street today when during Binghamton High School's freshman lunch period. They all looked so small. It's hard to believe I was 14 just six years ago. That six years ago, I was fourteen and in high school and getting my very first kiss from a 21-year-old who seemed like such an adult...

I'll be 21 myself in seven months and three days. The seven year distance between myself and the first man who kissed me will finally be covered. Not that he's stopped aging of course, but I haven't really seen him since that night, and to my mind, he'll always be 21. And 21 will always seem Adult to me, because of him...

Six years... That night, September 25, 1994, defined fourteen for me. I smiled over it, and wept over it, and puzzled over it, and wondered and hugged my pillow, and played Billy Joel a lot... That kiss, that first kiss, how it had melted me in a way, primed me for a journey to the adulthood of Twenty-One... It seems ridiculous now -- that 21 could be something so sacred, so unattainable. It also seems ridiculous to consider a neck-peck a real kiss.

I still feel that kiss if I close my eyes tightly enough. He was standing in the shadows, underneath a tree. He hugged me goodbye and told me to look him up in the Ithaca phone book. Of course, he couldn't kiss me in the light of the back porch, where anybody might be able to see. I was just 14, of course, and he was 21 -- SEVEN years... Seven years doesn't matter when you're 69 and 76, but it matters when there are laws protecting you from older men taking advantage of your sexuality... I was pretty sure that if he kissed me in the light from the porch, he'd be violating some statutory-rape laws or something. Also, I didn't suppose anybody could really understand our, ahem, love. So he hugged my tightly in the darkness, and kissed my left cheek, just below my ear.

I can still remember the crackle of brown leaves under his feet as he walked away from me. I was so sure he loved me. I'm not sure what gave me that impression. Certainly, I can think of nothing he said or did to imply such a thing... But it seemed to me that he did, that we were meant to be together, that once I was 18, and he was 25, we could be together forever.

Fourteen seems like such a long time ago... I guess six years really is a pretty long time. I guess seven is an even longer time.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I bought new socks today: all grey and brown and wooly-earth-tones... I'm wearing a long [blue] velvet skirt and one of Peter's big floppy tan sweaters. And of course, Doc Martens. I look like a picture from a "Back To School" ad, and I suppose it's a flattering look on me.

Unfortunately, I'm not going back to school, at least not this year, and maybe not for a few more years. I feel a little like a fraud: dressing classic-casual; carrying a notebook and bookbag like I'm some kind of scholar; being twenty years old and striding confidently down brown-leaf-spackled concrete like I'm on a study break downtown: maybe to pick up some books at the library and go read them over tea at Lost Dog Café...

I feel like I'm playing hooky.

Worse, I don't have anything to play hooky from.

"You go to SUNY?" somebody asks me every day. And every day, I have to say, "Nope... I'm working." As if working two part-time food-service jobs is so much more respectable than taking classes; complaining about tests and quizzes and the motherfucking registrar's office; doing homework in a coffeeshop...

I often wish I had a little bit more mental stimulation. To learn Spanish. And philosophy. And grammar. And yoga. And sociology. Maybe even a law class or two. To learn the rules of grammar so well that I could tutor my classmates, proof-read their papers like I did when I WAS in college. Not that college is guaranteed to provide mental stimulation, of course -- and I know for a fact that it doesn't, always. It's more likely, from personal experience, to provide one with a drug habit, some drinking buddies, and daily cravings for Baskin-Robbins or Taco Cabana, particularly if you live on-campus (and are thereby regularly subjected to cocaine and Marriott food, sort of by default). But I am an intelligent person, and I would like to be defined as an EDUCATED person, rather than a girl who makes coffee and dishes up clams and keeps an online journal... Right now, I suppose, the best I can do is look the part.

"...And it looks like you won't be going back to school... anymore..." --Billy Joel

* * * * * * * * * * *

I was awoken at oh-seven-hundred hours to find Peter standing in the doorway to my bedroom. I gasped, sort of, and squinted to figure out who he was. I'd been in mid-dream (something about walking to Boscov's to buy brown socks), and I was having trouble reconciling the socks-dream with the man in my room.

"I'm just getting a blanket," said Peter softly. I think I sort of moaned.

And in that interval between sleeping and waking, between brown socks and a man in my room, I was almost unsure of who, exactly, Peter was. Part of me honestly expected him to sneak in softly so as not to wake me, strip to his boxers, and climb into bed next to me. Part of me was trying to figure out why he was in my house. Part of me wasn't even sure he was Peter.

Someone asked me recently, "who's Peter?"

And I couldn't reply. I didn't know what to say. I suppose the closest answer, realistically, would be, "a friend of mine," and the answer closest to what I feel would be, "ex-husband," although neither one really fits. The history between us could fill volumes. And now, it's just that: history. I don't know where Peter fits into my life anymore, or IF he does. Certainly, he shouldn't be stripping and climbing into bed with me, as I sort of half-expected in my state of half-sleep. That is a piece of history that's long been over, although not so long that my semi-conscious mind couldn't grasp it for a moment.

When I woke again, at 10, Peter was sleeping peacefully in his old room, covered by one of my old crocheted blankets. I had the slight urge to sneak into his room and kiss him on the forehead before going out to run errands, but I wasn't sure it would be appropriate (to say nothing of the fact that Peter would probably scream, jerk awake, and smack me in the process.) I guess I'm not sure what is appropriate at ALL between Peter and me. Sometimes it is hard to let go of intimacies you've shared with someone -- sexual intimacies or otherwise -- regardless of whether or not the change in the relationship came abruptly and painfully, or gradually and dispassionately. The intimacies between people never really end, I suppose -- and I also suppose it is those intimacies that people mistake for unending love. Perhaps the affection I feel for Peter now is little more than soft echoes of nights I used to curl up against his shoulder and whisper "love you, schnookums," although I cannot imagine myself doing that now, at least not while in a state of full consciousness.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I have been spending a lot of time with Norman lately. We've fallen into certain rituals now: breakfasts at the Argo with the Sunday Times; late nights watching "Twin Peaks" and making love; me re-reading a Tom Robbins book for the zillionth time on his futon while he agonizes over a partially-blank page of sheet music with guitar and pencil in hand...

I suppose, if I was fourteen and still using 14-year-old terminology, it would be safe to say we're "going out." (Of course, if I was fourteen, "going out" would be out of the question, because of the seven-year age difference that seems a consistent part of my life.)

On some levels, Norman confuses the fuck out of me. Each time I think I'm beginning to understand him, I'm not. He's not like anybody I've ever met, and yet, he's a little like EVERYBODY I've ever met. ...And most frightening of all, perhaps, is that he reminds me of myself: nurturing and sweet one moment, and in the next, just a little bit antagonistic and self-important. We had a short discussion the other night about sexuality (as in, "orientation" and gender) and I could not believe how similar our stances are on something NOBODY has ever agreed with me on. And yet, I know he's not like me. I'm very unsure of him still; of whom he is, and of why.

On other levels, I'm aware that his presence in my life has made me very, very happy. I very much admire someone who can rationally debate me into a pit of my own making, without being a dick about it. I also very much admire somebody who doesn't see a problem with playing on swingsets at the age of 27. I imagine that Norman might be very good at going to the park to blow bubbles and fiercely arguing for the future of jazz in between puffs of bubble-soap and Camel cigarettes. The thought makes me smile. Norman often makes me smile.

* * * * * * * * * * *

I miss Aaron. I never get to see Aaron much anymore. I was playing the "Koyaanisqatsi" score today on my discman. It reminds me of Aaron. Maybe I'll drop in on the little freak's place of employment this afternoon... And chant "KO-YA-AN-IS-QATSI" at him over and over. Guaranteed, if I did that, he'd yelp, "DUDE!" to which I'd reply, "dude!" to which he'd reply: "Yeah!"

* * * * * * * * * * *

I'm going to get my hair cut now, and then perhaps to Lost Dog for tea...

Love,
~Helena*