Thirty-Six is the New Fifteen

For years when my family would get together, we’d all immediately revert to our adolescent roles, instead of acting like the more multi-faceted adults we’d become. In my mother’s house, I was perennially fifteen and moody (the way my brothers undoubtedly remember me best).

It took a long time to start shaking those chains loose. Over time, we’ve started allowing each other to be the adult versions of ourselves. We still pigeonhole each other a little, but it's a more informed pigeonholing - a little more subtle and relevant to reality.

This family shift has gone a long way toward making me feel better about The Past, although The Past isn’t something I tend to dwell on. I don’t especially like thinking about unpleasant things, and that part of my life was extremely unpleasant. I slammed that mental door shut a long time ago. I’ve almost convinced myself that difficult, awkward, judgmental teenager never existed.

A year or so ago we took our kids up to Heber City to ride an old fashioned train that was decorated to look just like Thomas the Train. There was a petting zoo, crafts, and county fair type “entertainment."

It was the last place I expected to see a flock of people from Las Vegas.

They were all people I’d known from church as a teenager, all grown up now with kids of their own. I saw them, they saw me, and I froze.

I could not make myself say hello to them. I averted my eyes and pulled my husband and kids over to the refreshment tent, then snuck furtive glances at them.

I wasn’t sure why I felt so sick to my stomach.

It wasn’t as though I didn’t like them. One of them was my brother’s best friend - a perfectly nice, quiet, serious guy. One of them was a girl who’d been a sweet kid when I was a teenager. Perfectly nice people.

I guess they sensed my discomfort, because we all pretended like we didn’t see each other or recognize each other, even though we were standing about two feet away from each other. It was ridiculous.

(Note: Lisa and Steve, if you ever read this, please know that I’m sorry. I was rude.)

It wasn’t them. It was me. Their only crime was knowing me back then. I didn’t want to be confronted with people who knew that girl, who thought I was probably still that girl.

It wasn't as though I was a serial killer. I've tried to think about how to describe myself back then, but I don’t even know what to say. I wasn't a wild teenager. I was just awkward and angry and very troubled, and I'm sure it showed in all kinds of ways I wasn't even aware of.

It’s hard to know if you ever really view yourself accurately, especially when so much is distorted by time and selective memory. Was I the girl who the old biddies in that congregation remember and still gossip about at baby showers? Was I the kid my mom remembers? Was I even who I remember? Maybe I was all of those things.

I know worrying about what these people think of me is silly and ridiculously self absorbed, but I guess that's how I behave when I'm surprised by someone I knew back then. I'm suddenly fifteen again, forced to see myself through the lens of my adolescence.

I don't live in Las Vegas now, so the odds that I'll run into someone randomly at Costco are slim. But if we run into each other sometime, if a little piece of the past walks up to me at Target some Saturday afternoon, I promise I’ll try to act like an adult and say hello.

Something in me might shake just a little, but I'll do my best to be polite and pleasant. It's the grown-up thing to do. (Actually, forget grown-up, it's the NORMAL thing to do.)

Besides, I figure all that shaking is probably good for the chains.