Nausea

During tutoring, I asked a high schooler what three things she wanted to get done before Monday (this was on a Thursday). She couldn't tell me three things.

I asked, "Is there a movie you want to see? A friend you're supposed to do something with? A bill you have to pay? A sale you want to go to?" All of this received a blank stare.

Do I miss being 14?

A few times in my life I have felt things changing before they actually did. There are times in life that seem like the gears shifting before any happens in the concrete world. Probably six months before I left for college, I started to feel like I was click-click-clicking up a roller coaster. By the time I actually left, the "change" or whatever it had actually been was over. You blink and it's all completely new but completely familiar.

In those times, I usually remember sitting in my bedroom on 79th. I used to look in my mirror and wonder how the picture there would morph and change. I usually wondered if the current me would get along with, approve of, respect the future me. Even then, I knew it was a complicated paradox.

I have nothing new. I am not a different person. Tomorrow will be like pretty much all my recent Mondays. But I feel that nausea like when a ride at a carnival starts. You know it's going to be mostly fun, but you might throw up. I can feel the gears behind the scenes starting to creak.

When it's over, I won't look much different in that mirror. It's mostly the feel of an era ending and a new one starting. It feels like the legaches I used to get when I grew five inches in one summer (a statement like that makes you think I'd be tall). My legs were growing and it was a weird pain that would creep up on me from inside my kneecaps. There wasn't anything to do to make it better, with the exception of my grandpa rubbing my knees until they burned, but just sit and take it.

Afterwards I never felt taller.