Darken the lights in a gym... call it a dance

Listening to my iTunes this evening, the song "All At Once" by Whitney Houston came on. WIth those first few notes I was immediately transported back to 1989. Standing in the semi-dark in the gym at Lincoln Middle School in Alameda. With the first few notes the energy of the room changes as girls get nervous and boys, well, I don't know how the boys reacted tot he emergence of a slow song at the school dance.

It's a Friday evening and a mere 6 hours ago, the gym was ablaze with lights as the last gym class of the day filed through. I can still faintly smell the lasagna and french-bread pizza served for lunch but I'm standing there with my friends, tryng to look nonchalant, but knowing EXACTLY where he is. You know the guy. When I first started middle school, in 6th grade, it was PF. Then he got uber-popular and started dating NM. I was just peripheral friends (if that) with this group. The guys in my group were DB and DS. In eighth grade DS was the one I kept an eye on.

I remember our graduation dance, in the same gym. Somehow our friends finally finagled it so that when the notes of the last slow song of our graduation dance, he really had no choice but to ask me. Thinking back, I'm sure it was so NOT subtle. I can still feel the scratchiness of his wool blazer on my cheek and can remember very clearly the floral dress I was wearing. There is one picture of this moment, with DS looking the other direction and me making some super lovely face at the camera. I think that song couldn't end soon enough.

But every time I hear this song it takes me immediately back, and I kind of don't want the song to end. Maybe if I play it on repeat long enough I can more clearly remember all that happened back then... who was I back then? How did I get here from there? It amazes me to think back to that Katie - SO young. I had no idea what was in store. :)

DS and I never did date in high school... the first 2 years of high school were about DB and SY, until JW. But that's another post. Heck, another life. By that time the high school dances had a totally different feel than the middle school ones. In high school there was so much more at stake - there was the actual potential of kissing. And so many more people to see you and talk about it the next Monday.

I don't remember too many high school dances until JW. Our first dance "together" was the Winter Ball my sophomore year. In the winter, I wore another dang floral dress. So 'with it', that was me. Sheesh. Remember posing for pictures at high school dances? Man. Those pictures are all in my cedar chest at my mom's house. A few years after high school, after JW ad I had finally extricated ourselves from each other, I came across a black and white candid from that first Winter Ball. We're sitting on the wooden stands that had been pushed back against the wall. We aren't looking at each other, and I look sort of nervous, while he is looking away. A couple of Christmases ago I pulled out all those pictures - all the formals we went to, the pictures of the corsages being put on, the dried flowers. (yes, I have some of those). All that stuff is so evocative yet so foreign today.

Ah, first love. How sweet. I don't know that I'd want to do it again to be honest. Even though I can't remember everything clearly (that was so damn long ago!) I am so much more comfortable with who I am now, which means that edge of insecurity that underlies everything in high school is gone. Thank god.

You know, I sort of feel like John Cusak in High Fidelity (sorry, I can't remember the character's name). Having removed myself from my normal life in the US, I feel like I'm taking stock of every single relationship or 'interaction' I've had in the last 16 years. I must be looking for some kernel of truth from each of them. Will I know it when I find it? Will I know when to just let go?

Closure is a funny thing. WIth JW, I'm not sure I knew the last time I saw him would be the last. That the last time we talked would be it. I still keep in touch with his sister-in-law (she dated his brother in high school and they've been married for almost 10 years now). I actually saw her when I was in CA, and her 3 kids (who are just gorgeous). I didn't see her husband, which is probably a good thing - I think it'd be really weird to see him. JW did come up - of course. He's happy now, which is good. She offered to give me his email, but I have no idea what I'd even say. Can you go back that far and find what you're looking for? To find it, you'd probably have to know what it is you're actually looking for. And I don't know. I think the end of our relationship was tough on both of us. I actually took my college boyfriend to her wedding, where JW was best man (of course, since it was his brother). What was I thinking? SN and I hadn't been together that long at that point, which means that JW and I weren't that far from being over, and 4 years doesn't disappear that quickly. I don't know that I'll get closure on that relationship. But maybe that's okay. I know that he's happy now and I know that I'm happy now, and really that's what matters now in this moment.

And this moment is what life is all about.

But it is sometimes nice to go back. Even if it's only for 3 minutes.