ghosts of innocence past.
rifling through some old hi-8 tapes at the house, i made a little discovery. i found a memory, coded onto shiny film, only two minutes long, but i watched it about seven times. it’s dated august 31st, 1996, and it’s my sweet sixteen party. nairobi, kenya. the living room is dim, with young kids dancing cheek to cheek. whoever is holding the camcorder (perry? tanja?) sweeps the room and then settles on me, dancing with s, my boyfriend at the time. the song is wet wet wet’s ‘love is all around’. it was our song, oh yes. it was the mid-nineties, and i was a teenager in love.
s was my first everything, really. he was slender, and handsome in a very italian way. his lilting accent and his loping walk broke my heart. we were crazy about each other, and s was just crazy. we were two beautiful kids who thought we knew what love was. we thought love meant three hour phone calls, ice cream shared at the cafe, lying on grassy fields staring into each other’s eyes, being jealous of everyone else’s advances. you know what kind of couple we were.
a week after that charming slow dance together, i broke up with him. our breakup was, necessarily, messy. i was angry at all his theatrics, and had feelings for someone else – someone even more emotionally disastrous. i was tired of s‘s all-encompassing drama. his tears, his tirades, his bi-polar cries for attention. i tried to break up with him face-to-face. it didn’t work. his flashing blue eyes went from angry to teary to contemptuous and back again. i relented, kissing those kissable italian lips. then i got home, and called to say i’d been right the first time. there were harsh words, letters sent back, picture frames smashed. different nightclubs became territorial, “his” or “hers”. friends caught in the divide were lost, to one side or another. it was all very high school.
but as i watch the grainy video footage of us dancing, i start to cry. how perfectly his arm slipped around my waist – how coordinated were our heights that my cheek rested on his shoulder, how my eyes turned to look into his and smile. how s used to tilt his head to look at me, the mysterious charming madness that was blessing and bane combined. how i loved him!
i hear he lives in dublin. i hear he’s as charismatic and impetuous as ever. i hear he hasn’t changed one bit. and then i look at my life, and how much i’ve changed. how innocent was that girl, at her sweet sixteen party. i am no longer innocent, really. i am also no longer naive – there’s that pesky trade-off. i don’t fall in love at the drop of a hat anymore, although i still want to. i don’t trust pretty boys blindly anymore. i don’t tell all my little secrets to anyone who asks – they have to earn them.
so i’m tough. so i’m strong. so i’m a little wary. bully for me. but i’ll tell you what i’ll never be again – that smiling, care-free girl with long curly hair and a button nose, celebrating her sweet sixteen. the prettiest girl in the room, dancing cheek-to-cheek with the prettiest boy.
so much for fairy tales.