Of one actress, she teased, “You always had a big crush on her.”
“Me? No I didn’t,” I denied. “But I bet she's even more beautiful now,” I offered, thinking that I might have a chance with the more mature and possibly washed-up version.
“Well, not really, she’s like, over fifty. I just saw her in a movie where she played the mother. I don’t think you’d be all that interested.”
In high school, I probably would have been interested. Looking back, they were days spent in a sort of fog - one of self interest and experimentation. What I remember seeps back in sensory waves – musty locker rooms and dance floors; classrooms and cafeterias, China Grove and the Doobie Brothers. Pintos, Mavericks and Plymouths.
We didn’t think about the economy and Watergate and what was happening overseas. We were sealed in a blissful cocoon. But we did think about girls. A lot. We were a thirsty bunch of Y-chromosomes, and girls were fountains of cold water in our testosterone desert. They stirred the fog and dizzied our senses.
Looking back, we didn’t choose them for their interests or intelligence – we liked them for their hair, their friends, our convenience. Because of that, our relationships were destined to be fleeting. Most of us can remember few moments today from those dates and dances and back seats.
I'm grateful now that we were able to experiment. We made simple choices because we were not complex individuals - after all, we liked Ford Pintos. But we fantasized that those relationships were more profound than they really were; that all the drama and melodrama were the real thing. They weren't, but it was a good dry run.
What mattered to us then were our friends, our image of ourselves, and our need for validation. Our role-playing dramas helped us grow. When they ended, we were stronger, like newly pruned trees waiting to grow stronger and taller next season.
We weren't looking very deeply, even though we convinced ourselves with certainty that we were. If we knew someone who wanted to go Yale or Stanford, it didn't impress us much. If they weren’t beautiful, accessible, or part of our group, they were probably bookworms. And they were invisible.
We couldn’t see that someone’s values were perhaps richer, their visions perhaps deeper. Our brains weren’t growing in the right ways. We thought about Friday night.
But, had we not experimented, had our relationships not been simple and shallow and doomed, we might have chosen a life partner who didn’t have the vision or depth or connection important to us now - now that our brains have made the connections they lacked decades ago.
Yet not everyone has benefited from lessons learned in the fog of youth. Sometimes, the metamorphosis occurs later in life, beyond marriage, beyond children. Couples find themselves wondering about the depth of their love; the fulfillment of their life's promise. And perhaps the person wearing the gold band sitting in the kitchen may not be the soulmate they need.
That person may be the one who went to Stanford.
So, after my sister and I reminisced about Sixteen Candles and The Breakfeast Club, I dreamt - of Molly Ringwold. Embarrassing but true.
In my dream, she told me she was available - but I told her I wasn’t interested.
Anymore.
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