It was twelve years ago, today, that I made Oreo cookie brownies that were never given as a birthday present. The snow started falling, that night. I was 17. Old enough to know I didn’t want to be stuck at home with my family when the world was blanketed with white, but too young to be trusted to drive anywhere in wintry conditions.
This was the South, after all. That part of America where weathermen can hardly contain their ecstasy at the idea of 5 inches. Of snow. In February. Imagine the eye rolling of Midwesterners at the idea of The Storm of the Century amounting to less than half a foot of snow.
In my case, I was giddy with relief when a friend within walking distance insisted that a group of us meet at her house to weather the storm. I didn’t ask permission to go, I told my parents that I was leaving and asked if I could wear an old pair of my dad’s coveralls so I didn’t freeze. Bundled in coveralls, a forgotten toboggan from the early 1980s, some gloves and Timberlands I told them where I’d be and that I’d be back after the snow melted. I’m sure that I was just a lovely daughter.
I trekked the 1.1 miles to my friend’s house, dodging very few cars on the way. People were told to stay home and keep warm – don’t cause a problem by going out. I felt like a rebel or maybe like a survivor after the end of the world – it was quiet on that normally busy section of Main Street.
Once at her house, I abandoned all outer clothing in deference to the heat they always had cranked up to at least 80 degrees. Sitting on the couch in their living room was akin to parking your ass in a kiln. The main heating vent in their house was covered by a huge, gloriously comfortable, plaid couch, because that’s just how the living room furniture arrangement worked best. I never quite understood it, but I’ve always remembered it.
This particular friend was one whose kitchen was always well stocked with comfort food and whose refrigerator was piled with beer and whose parents weren’t so concerned that we drank a lot of that beer at 17 years of age. In true preparation of a snowstorm, this particular friend had also stocked up on the best lay-on-the-couch-in-your-pajamas-all-day movies. We were set. Except, this was sort of a bad thing. You see, like pretty much every teenage girl in America, we had all decided that we were too fat. Just a month before, we’d all joined the same gym and a contest called “The Best Shape of Your Life.” This contest didn’t encourage typical snowstorm activity, excluding the shoveling of snow (which none of us were in danger of doing). It was the beginning in a LONG line of such events in my life. Funnily enough, even before I started that contest my 17-year old body held the title of “Best Shape” of my life up to and including the present day.
Another couple of friends made treks from their houses to this central meeting point for weathering the storm. We tried to convince another to hike the 4 miles from her house but she was the baby of that family and, as such, wasn’t allowed or inclined – knowing she’d be spoiled enough at home. There were four of us, and we’d spend the next four days together, thinking we ruled the world the way we ruled that house.
The memory of that weekend, twelve years ago, came to me this morning when I woke up and thought about what day it was. That weekend was a cusp of sorts. It marks the last significant memory I can remember before I fell in love for the first time, before I had my heart broken for the first time. It’s representative of everything that I loved about being a teenager – the group of girls that I called friends, the fun that we had, the absolute way we did exactly what we wanted without any sort of worry. That memory is a perfect representation of confident youth on the cusp of adulthood – before all the messy stuff happens and that youth is lost.
It makes me more than a little sad to examine that memory and contrast it with today. It makes me want to have time travel ability.
I would go back and tell two of the girls to “play nice” in the future, to tell them that a boy (that was nowhere near their radar, at that point) really wasn’t so important.
I’d tell a different two girls to take a step back, when the time came, and try to gain some perspective on the issue. Was one night really worth losing a lifetime friendship over?
I would tell one of those girls to stick to her guns. On that exact weekend, she debated with those girls whether or not she really wanted to go on a date with a boy that kept pestering her in her history class. She lamented that she was having a lot of fun in life without a boyfriend, but it would be nice to have a date to prom. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to just go on a couple of dates and have fun – surely it wouldn’t turn into anything – and besides, she’s going to college in a couple of months and she did NOT want to be one of those girls with a boyfriend back home. I would tell her to remember those thoughts and stick to them, they would serve her well in the end. I would tell her that the wasted effort of making Oreo brownies for someone that would never appreciate them would only be the first in a long line of well-intentioned acts that would turn awry.
I would tell those 17-year old girls to relish that time in their lives. I’d tell them that the next 12 years would bring all manner of events their way – events of happiness and heartsickness – events of great accomplishment and events of great embarrassment. I’d tell three of them that, in twelve years, they’d still have worries but they’d also be living incredibly wonderful lives. For the fourth, I’d tell her that I’d have no idea what she’d be doing in 12 years, but that I’d wish her well and that I’d be sorry at the same time I’d be resigned to the loss of a friendship.
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