My friend Sean and I made a pact to get married if neither of us found anybody by the time we turned 30. We were 16 or 17 then, parked on a steep gravel road that ribboned through plots of private property at the base of Black Mountain. I can’t remember which of our other friends were there.
We picked 30 because it sounded very adult and very far away. I picked him because he was one of the only boys in our friend group who never tried anything romantic with me, which made him seem safe. I don’t know why he picked me because I never asked. I remember feeling slighted by the invisible implication that wanting to wait more than a decade to imaginarily date me meant that he didn’t want to date me now.
I didn’t want to date boys back then and so I didn’t. But I needed them to want me. And then resented them when they did.
I wasn’t in touch with my sexuality then, and in the reflection of moments like this the narrator in my head interjects “…it’s giving gay!” The memeification of my identity makes me cringe but all roads lead to Rome, I suppose. Maybe someday being myself won’t be funny.
This summer I turned 30.
Some more things that happened this summer:
– Made dinner with my friends every Tuesday – Got comfortable letting people take my photo – Noticed my parents getting older – Called my brother more – Talked about gratitude a lot – Hoped to feel grateful again – Felt grateful again eventally – Quit my job – Line danced in Denver – Paddleboarded for the first time – Slept on the deck of a boat with some strangers – Turned the strangers into friends – Hardly exercised – Hardly felt guilty about it – Binge watched Love Island – Hosted many a trauma dump on the living room couch – Didn’t cut my hair – My best friend had a baby – Kissed a boy I liked who left town – Kissed a boy I didn’t like who won’t leave
I also went to New York this summer and saw my friend Sean again. We drank beer in his apartment and he played skate videos and slow-life cottage-core trad-wife YouTube vlogs on his laptop while we talked about getting older and being loveless and broke. Neither of us lied or pretended not to care about being alone.
We’re good friends because we don’t lie to each other. We’d probably be even better friends if I wasn’t too soft to afford being told the truth all the time.
He pulled a shirt out from his dresser drawer that he’d deemed too small for himself and gave it to me. He said his love language was giving friends vintage t-shirts. I wondered if a gift was still a gift if it was something you couldn’t benefit from keeping for yourself. But it made me feel special and since I’ve been back in LA I wear it to sleep as often as it’s clean.
We agreed to move our marriage pact to age 35. Partially because we’re not in love with each other, partially because it turns out 30 feels way less adult than we’d thought it would.
Today’s the last day of summer. Nothing about getting older feels like you think getting older will feel like. And still the seasons change.