Did you ever think your younger selves were buried deep in the earth, reduced to forgotten bones? They aren’t gone. They haven’t been scattered away by the winds of time like a handful of dusty ash. No, they remain with you, all your past selves, layered within your being. Or perhaps not so much layered as arranged in ascending order, like jars in a pantry, each holding ingredients of increasing significance: tea, flour, sugar, spark, flame. Lift the lid and inhale deeply. Remember that? Now your emotions are ignited.
When I first began to notice boys, I was far from the person navigating a Subaru station wagon through a store parking lot, hunting for wrapping paper and sunscreen. I didn’t have gray hairs, or a body that felt like it was falling apart, nor did I sport forehead lines that mapped my irritation over toothpaste remnants in the sink. I didn’t laugh too hard over a few beers, resulting in a little accident in my pajamas. No, I was just an ordinary young person. Well, maybe not entirely ordinary. It was sixth grade, and I had a flat chest, red-white-and-blue sneakers, and shiny hair held back with barrettes shaped like whales because I couldn’t get a haircut like Farrah Fawcett. I devoured books by Joan Aiken and finger-knitted a rug for my dollhouse while watching episodes of Little House on the Prairie. Yet, I also harbored thoughts of Mark Jupiter. I longed to hold his hand as “Rock with You” played in the roller rink, my skates shimmering like electricity. On the last day of school, I sent a roll of film to be developed and waited two weeks to see his dimples again, blurry and distant.
Then came seventh grade, where I briefly dated short, shaggy Liam Barrett for the duration of a bar mitzvah disco party, his braces so close together that I could almost taste their metallic thrill. In eighth grade, I fancied the boy in math class with eczema on his knuckles and an impressive afro. I also liked the intelligent boy in science class who, after passing me a note that read, “I like you too,” blushed crimson and went on to attend Yale. Boys, boys, boys.
The concept of crushes doesn’t strike you until your own child reaches middle school. When his awkward, metal-mouthed friends gather at your house, you are reminded—reinvigorated—by the innocence of puppy love. At a sleepover when they were 13, these rambunctious boys laughed all night about body parts. Their deep, cracking laughter echoed up the stairs, and I couldn’t help but smile. This was the age of Beavis and Butthead. They sported faces that resembled collages of mismatched parts, patchwork quilts of ears, eyes, and cheeks. My son brought home a friend whose mouth looked as if someone had shouted, “Open wide!” before tossing in a random assortment of teeth. They were so wonderfully unique, these boys, that I began to wonder if this was an adaptive evolutionary phase: while many girls could technically become mothers at 13, they looked at these awkward, mixed-up faces—adorned with crooked teeth and the beginnings of facial hair—and decided perhaps they could wait a bit longer. These were the same boys I had once liked! And I found myself liking them all over again.
However, crushes are different from the deeper complexities of desire that emerge later in life. These were the toned, athletic boys who first introduced me to the nuances of sexuality. The brown-skinned boys who pressed me against the padded walls of the gym during track meets, our nylon shorts damp from excitement, who held me close in the music room, their bodies full of youthful vigor. We shared fleeting moments of intimacy that felt electric, their faces now sculpted and smooth, their physiques reminiscent of statues. In that intoxicating age, I learned what it meant to feel lust, and those teenage shapes left indelible marks on my memories. Yet, I did not remain trapped there. I was not the person who missed the train of maturity, stuck in the station of yesteryears while others moved forward. I navigated through life, dating and having children with partners my age. But still, I feel a kind of nostalgic overlay: this present age, colored by the echoes of my 15-year-old self.
“Nostalgia is not pedophilia,” I explain to a friend in my kitchen, and my etymology-loving daughter, overhearing, hollers from the next room, “Is pedophilia the love of feet?”
It is not love, not of feet or boys. It is nostalgia. As I drive up to my son’s high school, I see those teenagers with their confident strides, their swagger, and the faint stubble on their jaws—they remind me of someone I once knew. Someone I used to be. Someone now disguised as a suburban parent, bringing gluten-free treats to bake sales. In the silent film of their lives, I am “The Mother.” They might notice the platter of bacon I carry, but they do not see the vibrant youth I once was, clad in athletic gear, which is both right and good, even if it stirs up feelings of longing within me. I will live and pass away without ever again knowing the thrill of a teenage boy’s embrace—which is, in its own way, right and good, no matter how deeply it makes me feel my own mortality.
And then there is The Father. This man, dressed in the uniform of his own youthful dreams, perhaps in tie-dye at a concert, still retains the spirit of the boy with dark hair falling into his eyes. He is not merely a distant memory; he pushes through the mundane, finding moments to connect with the hidden, vibrant girl behind the facade of domestic life. Too gently, perhaps, and not all the time, but sometimes. And now.
This piece is drawn from Soul Mate 101 and Other Essays on Love and Sex, edited by Jennifer Niesslein, to be published by Full Grown People on September 21, 2015.
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In summary, this reflection captures the bittersweet nature of nostalgia—how past experiences with love and desire shape our present selves, and how the journey through adolescence remains an integral part of our identities as parents and individuals.