the take back

scene - midtown diner - late-afternoon

i am with my cousin, surrounded by tourists and commuters. i ask him things like do you have a girlfriend? and how is school? (no, fine) bringing the coffee mug to my lips at every questionmark reminding myself that this is what older cousins are supposed to ask.

i am older and feeling even older still. when i was your age there was no internet i exaggerate. i start sentences with i remember when you... and he brings a hand to his forehead, wishing people would stop telling these stories.


and he wants to know "how do you think about those times, when you were in high school?" and i get the far away look of someone who both loves and hates the question. i will never be able to answer it right. when i think about it, it feels like it was someone else's life, and this is true mostly. my memory has warped the details, the important parts and frankensteined the pieces into a monster that is nothing like it really was.

the thing about being i teenager, i say with some authority, is that everything seems so much more important than it is. everything has this urgency to it. i list this as progress, but in truth it is what i miss most. the fire, the passion, the feeling of the entire world expanding, contracting, breathing with you.

it's the sort of thing that fades when you get older. your perspective changes and you just sort of start seeing everything on a different scale. the words are halfway out, tumbling from my lips, too late to take back and even as i'm saying them, i feel ridiculous telling him this. pretending to be worldly and wise. his father has just passed away.