13 Years Ago

Thirteen years ago...

I was thirteen. I had a boyfriend named James Riddle, who sang just like Noel Gallagher, from Oasis. I loved to listen to him sing. He was adopted and his family was very nice. I forget what his dad did. I remember their car though, it was long, like a station wagon, but not quite. And it was beige. The roof inside was coming to pieces and we used to reach up and peel bits off, as if we just couldn't help it. He loved The Beatles.

He was crazy, or at least he liked to boast that he was. He said he was schizophrenic and more than once he had to be hospitalized because he had done something. I visited him one time in the hospital. He didn't seem himself, but that's all that I remember.

I saw him again. Maybe, 9 years ago? He was married, his wife wasn't very nice to me. He had a baby, not quite the same age as Devon was. I don't remember if it was a boy or a girl. The baby was very dirty, and had dirty clothes on. He was different. Or perhaps I was different.

He was no longer JAMES. He was a guy who needed a shave, and a job, and needed to give his kid a bath.

I've always been amazed at how once you grow up, once you come out of that naievty that is childhood, you begin to see people for what they are. And suddenly, they don't hold the same appeal as they once did. I suppose that's good in a way, it's growing up, isn't it? But it's also sad, as well. It's like having your rose coloured glasses ripped off, only to reveal a very cold, bleak landscape.