Today there is a feeling which I can equate to a Saturday morning. Correction, let us make it Saturday, just past noon, you are seventeen and just waking up for the day. You are seventeen and not quite an adult and almost not a teen. You are sort of empty as you just broke up with your boyfriend and it is Saturday. Fridays are okay. You have the basketball or football game that you can talk your friends in to going with you to because you will drive. You can borrow your mom's minivan. They may drink and maybe even drag their stupid boyfriends with them. You might have to witness a noisy game of tonsil hockey in the rearview mirror. But, hey, you aren't home. And, you are not alone. If you are a lucky, the game will be an away game and will take up most of the night. On the way back into town, you will talk everyone into going to Chili's for some chow. They will order that onion thing that makes you want to gag. You know, the entire onion that is sliced, deep fried and smells like feet. But, that is okay because you aren't home and your BFF's stupid boyfriend's cousin that was visiting from out of town and came along to the game is sort of cute even though he isn't your boyfriend, I mean ex-boyfriend, and talks too much about his Camero.
No, it is not that Friday night. It is Saturday and your BFF will go out with her stupid boyfriend. So you are stuck with your parents for the night. Don't tell anyone that you sort of don't mind. So you run to the video store sometime during the afternoon. You go between lunch and dinner so you aren't seen there in the video store picking out a movie for your parents by any of those stupid couples from your high school who will probably miss half of whatever stupid movie they pick out together making out on the couch. So you a there looking at every movie reading all the labels so you don't pick out one with stupid teenagers drinking, having sex, or being vampires because you don't want your parents thinking all teenagers are drinking, having sex, and loving vampires because they are not. You won't rent that one so you are stuck with the new princess cartoon you would have loved to see like five years ago, the gross murder mystery crap your dad would probably like, the sappy love story where the best friend steals the groom, or the dramody about the middle-aged old dude freakin' out because his wife left him because he is a looser.
So there you are with your parents eating pizza your mom was nice enough to order knowing you are pissed off at boys. Later, she will pull out some chocolate mint ice-cream. You are eating your ice cream and watching the stupid dramody not feeling sorry for this looser who really didn't see the beautiful woman that was standing right in front of him until it was too late because he was being stupid and it is only eight o'clock pm. They are both on the couch cuddling, your parents. You're thinking about how Mr. Stupid Head used to touch your arm and give you goose pimples. Or, maybe how you used to try to get him to say your name because you liked how it sounded when he said it, but he never would. Or, maybe Mom is busy knitting or grading school papers on the couch while Dad is in the recliner snoring. You wonder if all men in their forties, nearly fifty, fall asleep five minutes into the movie, any movie excpet ones with car chases. How boring. Stupid boys. But, it is okay, because you aren't alone on this stupid Saturday just after a stupid boy decided to be really stupid.
Yep, that pretty much sums up how I feel this very moment. I feel like a seventeen year old who is alone on a Saturday night but not really allone on a Saturday night and okay with that. I feel like that teen who is neither here or there. There is something, some place, just somewhere in the middle, a middle space. That is where you will find me.
PS I am twice seventeen plus two years and didn't break up with a boyfriend. This is an analogy and should not be taken litterally beyond the essence of the moment of feeling sort of not here and not there and being okay with that.
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