Dear Postal Carrier,
I’m turning 30 soon. I’m scared. Well, that’s not fully true. I’m scared, but I’m delighted, too. I feel good, grown up. I feel like I could, maybe, be taken seriously once or twice a week. Except that I still look like I’m 22-years-old. A blessing and a curse.
But I like 30-year-olds. All my life I’ve felt older than everyone around me. And that’s not a snobbish remark at all, just the truth.
There was this time, when I was about 15-years-old. I was at a party, where I took to watching. I would sit far away – either in another room, or my favourite – outside, by myself with a sketchpad or notebook. Sometimes, I’d sit with one other person, talking about life. I was, and still am, a sucker for intimacy (although I’ve now learned to appreciate a fine, light banter). I would laugh at the others, drunk and high, their voices spilling out of the house, onto the streets.
So this time, I was seated with this boy. I thought him to be a man at the time. He was 17 years-old, ancient and mature. We were sitting on a curb, talking about life as we knew it to be, his arms wrapped around, hugging his knees. His head resting on them, he cocked his face toward mine and stared into my eyes. He was the first person to tell me that my soul was old.
“What do you mean?” I asked. I averted my eyes, staring instead at the pavement.
“You’re beyond your years. The rest of us haven’t caught up to you yet,” he said.
(I thought he was wise. He was trying to get into my pants and, although I didn’t fall for it that night, I did eventually.)
I told him that I felt old, really old.
“This is my last time around,” I said.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, when I die, I won’t be around again. I can feel it. I know that I’ve been around a few times now. I don’t even know if I believe in reincarnation, but I believe in this: I’m tired. I’m 15-years-old and I’m tired. And it’s not my body. Hell, I could run a marathon tonight. It’s my soul.”
He was quiet.
“And I can remember things from before. Like the ‘20s.” I looked at him to gage his reaction, saw his face and pulled back a bit. I was thinking about the time, in grade 7, when I started jumping, really high. I felt like I could fly, like a bird. I felt myself take off. I saw it, dirty white wings flapping and pulling my torso into the sky. I was the most beautiful seagull anyone had ever seen.
And I thought to myself, ‘maybe I was a bird before.’
I decided to keep this to myself.
I think one of the drunks stumbled out shortly after and started singing something about k-i-s-s-i-n-g in a tree.
On my report card in grade three, my teacher wrote the best compliment I have ever received. He wrote that when other kids see a bird, they see a bird; when I see a bird, I see “the concept of flying.”
Sometime over the years, despite how proud she was of that lone comment, my mother lost that report card. She also lost that memory, discarding it to replace it with something more pressing at the time. But that’s another story.
Anyway, a bit off track. The point I was trying to make is that I like 30-year-olds. I like the buying of houses and serious relationships that lead to serious fuck-ups. It’s only when people’s lives get heavy with responsibility and experience and they fuck it up that they seem to be struck with an air of decency and drop their stiff judgments of others. It’s easy to be judgmental of others when you haven’t had to make any hard decisions in life yet.
And people are a different kind of pretty in their 30s. It more real, I think. More comfort in our flaws.
Did you feel this way when you hit 30? Have you even hit 30 yet? I wonder about you – not in a creepy way, please don’t take it like that. It’s just that I haven’t even seen you yet. I don’t even know if you’re male or female.
I guess what’s scaring me is how quickly it’s all going. And I know it’s not going to slow down anytime soon.
Here’s a thought I had today – do you get mail, like personal mail, letters like this from people you know?
Have a good walk today,
Me - at 8493 Wellington Road South.
