Adult Situation

happy new year? -enjoy-

 

I’m not a baby anymore. I’ve spent so much time wishing I was older; wishing I could be the adult I have always felt I was. Its times like these, though, that make me realize I’m not as adult as I feel. I get myself into these adult situations and am surprised when I can’t handle them. I shouldn’t have to handle situations like these. Yet here I am, once again, trying to find the strength to be the adult I pretend to be, hating myself all the while.

I never thought that in one day, one night I could feel everything that I felt. I never thought I could be affected as much as I was by such a short amount of time. I know I will remember that night for a long time to come. Hopefully, I won’t have anything more to make me remember the night I realized how quickly the tables can turn. How easily the balance of things can be disrupted. We’re all balancing so precariously. We’re running along the rim of a plate spinning on a dowel. One wrong move, one bad step or sudden shift and we all fall down. This is solidarity on a needle.

 

I watched as someone I had always admired and felt a certain kinship to try to destroy himself and everyone around him. He came close; too close for my comfort. I stood there, wrapped in my insecurities and a thin coat, as he stumbled down the drive and into the street, with his girlfriend following. Screaming, he ripped at the suspenders that hung over his bird chest and beat his head. The father walked up to me as I watched this horrifying scene unfold and commented on the cold. This sorry parade continued down the street as a few able bodied children jumped into cars and began the slow speed chase through the dark ghetto streets. I ran inside to my warm bed and my disappointingly indifferent boy.

I lay there, shaking from cold and fear without the least bit of comfort. The door opened and up the stairs walked dearest friend number one and the girlfriend. She was crying and bleeding. She wore a white jacket. People scattered and quarters stopped bouncing as the pair crossed the room and sat down. Those around them turned and ran, diving off couches and leaping over people to avoid the bleeding, crying girl. No one wanted to be needed. They feared emotion and responsibility like only children of my particular vintage can. I, in an attempt to rise above the masses currently huddled in my bed, went into the other room.

“Are you okay, baby?” I whispered. The girlfriend replied that she was, but the red on her jacket proved otherwise. The three of us sat on the couch, one on either side of the girlfriend, as she cried. In the other room, my room, you could hear the sounds of typical late night party merriment. I knew there was a boy in there and I wished I was with him, but my desire to act my gender kept me rooted to the old soft couch. After a while the girlfriend sniffled and announced that she was fine, but in desperate need of a cigarette. Dearest friend number one was dressed warmer and thus accompanied her.

I returned to the room as the children scurried out because the coast was clear and they wanted to have fun. Before returning to the warmth of my bed and my boy I looked out the window. Just in time, really, to see my destructive friend being wrestled up the drive by his father and a friend in a red sweater. I shook off the tightening around my heart and returned to bed, only to find the boy exactly the same as before. I curled myself around him the best I could, hoping to soften his stoic demeanor. Eventually it worked, but only after much cooing and general cynicism on his part. His body relaxed and curled to meet mine, perfectly as always.

The door opened and dearest friends one and two entered with the friend in a red sweater. The boy and I got out of bed and proceeded to drink our fill of stolen champagne. The bubbles filled my stomach and made me feel light and sparkly. The friend in a red sweater picked up a guitar and we all sang along to a song we knew by heart. He played it twice then put down the guitar for the rest of the night. People drifted through the rooms. Clothes were scattered on a table covering any and all phones. We were an island.

The boy and I lay down in our leopard printed bed and loved. People passed through and the party kept going, but we didn’t notice, or at least we didn’t care. We were happily preoccupied. Others noticed and commented, but “everybody does it” so we continued.

Afterward, we lay still in our leopard printed bed and sighed. A sweet sigh that held in it all the stresses and adventures of the day; summed up perfectly in that happy breath. Later we rejoined the living and continued with our merriment. We were very serious about our merriment, as only the strong survive the night. We were determined to be the last ones standing and win the prize. We did earn something, but nothing desirable. Well, not by most.

In not too long the last bottle was emptied, without the use of the also-stolen glasses. People began drifting off to their various corners. Two into a bed, three onto a couch, one on the floor. The boy and I returned to our little nest and let the bubbles wash over our eyes. The mannequin in the corner was wearing a suit for the occasion and I felt safe. Safe enough to test the boundaries; to go beyond the boundaries; to go without boundaries. I couldn’t think. I was drunk, off the bubbles and bottles and the boy next to me, warming the sheets.

Afterwards, a thin wave of ecstasy rolled over us. Thinner than the boundary we didn’t respect. Seconds after the thin wave rolled in, it receded and left only broken seashells and fear. Fear and anxious excitement mixed quite nicely with the fading buzz and the smells from the sheets to create an overall blunted feeling of terror, dampened more still by the late hour.

We lay in out leopard printed bed, arms and legs tangled for a time. The skin on skin contact reminded us that we were, in fact, awake and alive and not dreaming in the hazy night. I didn’t cry. I tried to; I wanted to, but the tears wouldn’t come. Mostly, we lay staring up at the ceiling, as if the stucco dots somehow contained all the answers we needed. I doubt they did, but we persevered and continued our staring contests. After some time, the old yellowed blinds behind out head glowed with the early dawn light. Upon seeing this, we felt comfortable loosening our hold on consciousness. We had survived the night and now were tired to the point of ecstasy. Wrapped warmly in each other’s arms and the glow from the windows we drifted softly off to sleep.

Now here I am, waiting for the inevitable. I have a gut feeling of what will happen. Something is telling me that I will have more to remember that night than my dress and a stolen champagne glass. My first instinct is fear, as is common at times like these. Yet, there, gnawing at my heartstrings is the tiny pest of hope. A hope that, as scary and unrealistic as it may seem, I will have something more to remember the night. It was a good night; a long night. And now I shall sleep.