thatcraftykid
“Change is the law of life.
And those who look only to the past or present
are certain to miss the future.”
– John F. Kennedy –
Part Two
“Tempered Melancholy”
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy,
for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves;
we must die to one life before we can enter another.”
– Anatole France –
~ A Touch Too Much ~
Once I got passed the whole kid party, piñata, streamers, and balloons phase, my birthdays no longer seemed like such a big deal. When I turned eleven, twelve, and thirteen my mom had to force me to invite the girls in my neighborhood over for sleepovers. Our community was tight knit so, out of politeness, all of them came unless they had valid excuses not to. The moms crowded into my kitchen and made margaritas while us girls set up our sleeping bags in the living room. There were usually around sixteen of us there, and everyone wanted a spot next to Claire Lawson because she had all the best nail polish and knew how to French braid. She stole my thunder every year, but I pretended not to care. I told everyone my mom’s braids were neater, and my best friend, Natalie Casstevens, always kept me entertained.
For my fourteenth birthday, my mom took me and Natalie to see our favorite singer at the time, Kenny Chesney, in concert. That started a new tradition, which lasted two years longer. Our taste in music changed as often as Natalie’s hair color. We went from country to emo to screaming our hearts out at the AC/DC reunion tour that came to the Mississippi Coast Coliseum when I was sixteen. That concert almost made up for the fact that, while I had gotten my license, I hadn’t gotten a car. If the people at the city council had had any decency, they would’ve waited until after my birthday to hike up the already high Meridian property taxes.
My memories of my seventeenth birthday aren’t fond ones. David had been out of the hospital for a week and, for obvious reasons, he hadn’t asked to see me. I’d thought that if I went to see him I could show him how sorry I was in a way that notes and flowers couldn’t convey. I’d felt too guilty to celebrate my birthday without setting things right with him first, so that morning I got up early and headed over to his house. Nervously, I rang his doorbell. My heart was slamming in my chest when his dad finally opened the door. Peering around him, I saw David sitting at his kitchen table with his mom. He stopped buttering his toast and just stared at me. His mom looked horrified. David’s dad glanced back at his wife and son. “I think you’d better go,” he’d told me, not letting me speak.
“Wait. Please, let me apologize. I just want – ”
The door was shut in my face before I could finish. It wasn’t fair. I hadn’t meant to hurt David. He’d been my friend. Didn’t I deserve forgiveness? They weren’t even giving me a chance.
“It wasn’t my fault,” I’d shrilled at the top of my lungs, kicking the screen door in frustration. From next door, Pastor Nash gaped at me, half bent over to pick up his newspaper. I kicked David’s screen door again, angry because I’d made a public spectacle of myself. I was on the verge of tears as I sprinted diagonally across the tree-lined street back to my house. I hated to cry, though I did it often enough that I almost came to enjoy it.
Since seventeen was the worst, it was no surprise that my next birthday was a much happier occasion. Bobby, sweetheart that he was, froze a patch of grass in a remote part of the park and we spent a charming September afternoon sliding around, falling into each other’s arms. We might’ve stayed out there until dark had John not decided it would be funny to melt the ice out from under us. Before we knew it, Bobby and I were kneeling in a wide puddle of mud. I didn’t shriek or complain; I threw a watery clump of mud right at John’s face. He was shocked at my audacity. I think it was the first time he actually respected me as a person, instead of a treating me as an abstract sex object. After the mud-ball fight that had ensued, we sprayed each other off with a hose, and then the three of us slogged back inside, weak with laughter. My eighteenth birthday hadn’t fallen on an election year and I didn’t win the lottery, but it was a memorable day nonetheless.
The only thing was, I half-expected Logan to come home from his post-Dr. Grey, pre-teaching-agreement trip just because it was my birthday. Not that he had anyway of knowing that, since I’d never told him. I’d just hoped that maybe he would sense it or fate would bring us together or something. The night before, I hadn’t been able to sleep because I was too busy vividly fantasizing about the way he would look when he swept me into his muscular arms and whispered romantically in my ear that he’d always loved me and had just been biding his time in Canada until I was officially an adult. That particular fantasy usually ended in a passionate kiss and eventual wedding bells.
Needless to say, my highly active imagination was in no way grounded in reality. When he had finally returned, a month later, our reunion had been incredibly anticlimactic. I’d hugged him loosely and made an attempt at banter, trying not to betray the full extent of my joy at his return. Logan had seen right through that, just like he must have when we’d gone through the same ritual after his first return. He might not have been the most emotionally sensitive guy in the world, but he’d had enough experience with fawning to recognize that was just what I was doing. Not that it mattered to him.
My nineteenth birthday passed without much notice. I did get a few presents and lots of hugs, though, and to celebrate, I went bowling with Bobby, Kitty, Jubilee, Peter Rasputin, and Julian Keller. It wasn’t anything we didn’t do on a regular basis, but it was still fun. Keller and I were becoming pretty close as we were the odd men out since Jubilee and Peter were dating and Bobby and Kitty were pointedly not dating while doing all the flirty things couples do. To be honest, I couldn’t help being a little envious. Not just of Kitty, but of the touching thing in general.
A person can’t completely transcended jealousy. It’s innate.
All I could do was not let it get to me. Keller helped out a lot with that. His affinity for practical jokes combined with his marginal telekinetic ability kept me laughing too hard to fall into the trap of resentment. When we bowled, I always made sure he was on my team so he could give my ball a helpful nudge when I needed it. I bowled my first perfect game thanks to him. The lane manager gave me a certificate and everything, which went along nicely with the free pizza I got in honor of my birthday.
Later, Logan took me out for ice cream and a joy ride on Cyclops’s bike, which he’d been teaching me to drive. I’d relished the feel of his arms wrapped securely around my waist. That had been the highlight of my day.
It’s hard to judge time when looking back, but nineteen seemed to come and go in an instant. A lot of things happened that year, but they were all repetitive. Finals and midterms, grueling training sessions that left my back aching and my head ringing, hanging out in Bobby’s room with the gang, having intense discussions about the meaning of life with Kurt, watching action movies and cop shows on the couch in the teacher’s lounge with Logan. Thus was my life.
Meanwhile, mutants attacked non-mutants, non-mutants attacked mutants, mutants attacked mutants – the only way to keep track of the bad guys was to remember what we stood for. We were the good guys, fighting for peace, bogged down in hate. Crime was increasing everyday all across the nation. Conservatives blamed mutants; liberals blamed societal conditions. Neither side did anything about it. Even as they rallied for their cause, it was as if they secretly hoped nothing would come of it. Very few government officials had the nerve to make a move for fear of everything blowing up in their faces.
They kept on plugging down the straight and narrow. They went home to their significant others or shacked up with their secretaries as they’d always done, knowing full well that their blissfully normal lives could shatter at any moment.