coming of age
kelly | 29 January 2008 - 11:05pm
As we're driving down the interstate, a Nirvana song comes on the radio.
"The kids entering high school now weren't even born when Kurt Cobain died," Rob says.
"Really?"
"Well, he died in 1994, right?"
"I think it was my freshman year. So, yeah."
"Fourteen years ago. Nearly half your lifetime."
"That's also when I met you, yo."
"Yup, nearly half your lifetime ago."
I think about who we were then. We're returning home from watching Juno, and so it's perhaps easier than usual to muster a memory of our teenage selves. We were a lot like them - good kids involved in band and sports and sharing a real relationship. We weren't part of the snooty popular crowd and had no desire to be. Somehow we even managed to avoid the typical teenage angst. My recollection of our high school years is of open mic night at the coffeehouse, hikes on warm spring days, and a sense of possibility in the air that was almost palpable. We were naive in so many ways, but we also knew ourselves well and recognized something in each other. I remember we used to long for the day when we'd be grown up and sharing a life together - when we could drive home, together, after a movie.
I look at us now, sitting in this car. Rob's hands are clasping the steering wheel and mine are clutching my suede gloves. Where we are now is what once felt so far away. And suddenly I see that we are undeniably adults. All the evidence is there - the marriage, the mortgage, the two-car garage. But when did it happen? Wasn't it just yesterday that I was writing RIP Kurt on my spiral green notebook, right next to the heart encircling Rob's name?
I gaze out the car window at the unending stretch of road. There are tiny travelers far ahead of us, marked by red, and ones behind us who are penlights of white. And I realize it's been happening all along, while we've been moving. I guess I thought there would be a sign or something, a crossing of state lines, a concrete destination that I would recognize upon arrival.
We pass a tractor trailer and as I watch the continuous roll of its wheels I'm surprised to find my eyes welling up with tears. I search myself for sadness, but there is none. I am just profoundly affected by this moment of realization, of the tangible truth in it. There are mileposts along the way, some more memorable than others, but growing up, and being, and living, is happening all along the way, constant and so gradual that it almost goes unnoticed.
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Beautifully written. Increasingly recently, that's exactly how i feel. Sometimes it's a scary feeling.
You have a great way with words :)
Great post. I am struck by adulthood periodically too, and it ranges from awesome to frightening. But it always sneaks up on me like this.
(We of course don't have the mortgage, thanks to ridiculous SoCal, but if the market keeps crashing we might be able to get one soon.)
I love your writing.
This is really beautiful, Kelly.
ah...wait until you hit 40. It gets wierd - you start seeing the grey hair and the wrinkles, and wonder which part of your face is going to fall next.
But you still feel 19 inside. thats whats wierd.
I remember the day Kurt Cobain died - I was living in NYC at the time, and within 4 hours of the announcement, you could buy a t-shirt on the street with his obit from the New York Times.
bizarre.
Oh, Kelly. So many things I want to say, but they're tumbling all over each other. Like:
This is so good, it excites me so much, I just can't contain myself, in a "makes you wanna smack your grandma" kind of way. I don't think I ever understood that expression before this moment. If I had a grandma, I'd knock the hell out of her right now, just from the sheer power of the emotion, the recognition, the je ne sais qua, that you evoke when you write like this.
And please, please, with the book.
DAMN!!!!! You're good.
And I love your love, you and Rob.
And I've said all this before, except for the threatening granny part.
One thing new: Your story will give us parents pause when the time comes to tell our daughters (sons, too?) how "this" love will be one of many, people don't end up with their first boyfriend/girlfriend, even if it seems so powerful, people grow in different directions, meet new people, etc., etc.
That was such a vivid story. You have a way with words! It's wonderful that you and Rob have been able to spend so much of your lives together already and have such great memories.
You have a great way of summing up the thoughts in my head sometimes. On the cusp of buying our first house, I keep thinking to myself, "Really? A house? When did we become so grown up?" I don't even feel old enough to be married let alone have a mortgage. I keep waiting for that moment when I finally feel like a real adult, not just like someone pretending to be a grown up. Maybe that happens at 30? Or 40?
It is in those moments that you become aware, but not all the way, because you almost deny it too, don't you?
I love that Susie used my name in her comment...janasayqua, right? :)
I had just graduated from college when Kurt died, and it just seemed to put an end to that part of my life, the grunge, the college years of not having a lot of responsibilities...maybe that marked part of my growing up than I realize.
Great, now I'M having an epiphany.
Beautifully written, Kalki.
Beautiful Kelly. Just beautiful.
Love and hugs to you, my friend.
absolutely beautiful.
and i know exactly how those moments feel. but you can put it into words just so damn beautifully.
I am so glad to be in on the unnoticed happenings, the then and the now. It is one of the better things of living here again, having you and Rob close by to grow up with.
Thank you, nadia.
As a kid (and even teenager), I could never imagine adulthood, Ern. I used to think that I must be going to die before I got married because I absolutely could not envision it. I wanted it, but couldn't quite visualize what my life would be like. So I'm very much surprised (and thrilled and sometimes scared) to be in the midst of adulthood now.
Thank you, William and Sharkey.
I wonder sometimes, operagal, what it will be like to watch ourselves age. I guess that, too, will be so gradual that we might not even notice until after it's happened. (Or more likely I'll despair over every gray hair.) But will I look in the mirror someday and be startled to see myself as an old woman? (And by old I'm talking, like, 70. Not 40. :) )
Susie, elder abuse is not the answer. But your sentiment I appreciate very much. One of my dear friends - who was my high school English teacher, and so knew Rob and I back when - has a daughter who constantly suffered high school heartbreak over the same boy. Whenever my friend would suggest that teenage relationships were not meant to last forever, her daughter would tearfully exclaim, "But what about Rob and Kelly?!" She very soon came to regret having shared our story with her daughter.
Jenski, snatching him up when I did was one of my smarter moves.
I often feel like I'm just pretending to be a grown up too, geeky. I've always thought that having kids must make a person finally feel like a real adult, but I'm not sure that would do it, either.
I can see that, Jana. An end of an era, of sorts. And you do have a great name. :)
To you as well, LB.
Thank you, nicole.
Aww, HFD, your comment made my day. We feel the same way.
I remember exactly when Kurt died. It was on my birthday.
I remember feeling this way after being married for three years. Soon after, we decided to have a child. Now I weep because I have no idea when she grew up. Right before my eyes, right before my eyes....
Hi Mutha! Yes, I can imagine how much more pronounced the passage of time would be with a child.
This is such a beautiful post. Often I feel fairly un-anchored in time as being a single gal I don't have somebody next to me sharing those milestones and events. So many of my day-to-day memories are ambiguous time-wise for me and remain more fluid and abstract. On the other hand when I talk about the old days with my friends, because we shared those times so intimately (before marriage and kids etc) I totally connect with them and feel the time passing.
It is scary and weird and wonderful.