Pre-Teens and Relativity

“Relativity is a mind-fuck,” someone almost as smart but maybe not as sophisticated as Einstein said to me when we found ourselves in the middle of two big rigs on a highway going through Arizona. The speed we were traveling seemed not even close to what the speedometer read as the trucks apparently moved the same speed as each other, probably three miles under ours. We felt we were inching our way across the state in the same way that our speed would have felt twice as fast had those trucks been going 80 mph in reverse.

“Does it look smaller to you?” It’s a common question my dad asks me when revisiting places I frequented in my childhood. Even the doorways and the steps, objects I encounter everyday, of my elementary school look miniscule to my now only five-foot-five eyes. The freshmen looked so young my senior year and sixteen isn’t this crazy grown-up age to me anymore, yet I never seem too old or too young, too big or too small. Relativity is quite a mind-fuck.

My fingers scrambled across the black and silver keypad of my T-Mobile Samsung to compose a text message as quickly as possible. “Two year olds have cell phones?” and Sally received it in a timely fashion. I watched her lean her back against the sideways bus bench to fetch her phone out of her Washington sweatshirt pocket, read my text message with quick-moving eyes and look back up at me for a smile. Of course I was exaggerating a bit. Our eyes were fixated on a clan of kids coming home from school in hardly matching Limited Too and Gap Kids merchandise. Their Jansport backpacks, stretched to their fullest potential, hanged from their shoulders like piggyback rides and their soft fingertips raced across the surface of their cell phones.

“She’s texting her boyfriend,” one of the kids said to the other. She was talking about her four-foot, flat-chested friend standing in the middle of the bus. Her hair had been pulled back into a frizzy black ponytail and her baby blue tee fit her like those on a pre-preadolescent mannequin in the kid’s department of Penny’s. I tried to imagine what kind of boyfriend-girlfriend relationship could prosper in the arena of titlessness. I decided for reality’s sake and for the sake of my own well being that it was a joking, playful, childlike kiss on the cheek type set-up.

My observations were interrupted, or aided, by Katie asking the group how far it was to our destination. “It’s just ten minutes from here,” the boy in front of us offered up. He was small and fair with a blonde mushroom cut that curled in with forehead-intruding waves like my brother’s used to do. Dark aviator sunglasses rested on his nose and teeth he’d grow into announced themselves as he parted his rose colored lips. He sat on the bus across from Sally, still wearing his backpack, which draped over red plaid from his neckline down to his shoelaces. I wanted to ask if it was pajama day at school but I was afraid to insult his choice of attire.

“You look like my brother.”

“Oh yeah? Is he charming and dashingly good looking?” He asked to our surprise, wiping his hand over his hair and face like his idea of a flirty model might do. He paired it with a charismatic smile.

The girl texting her boy toy gave out a humorous huff and the rest of the group let out a little chuckle.

“You’re such a douche,” the oldest-looking one said, gripping her backpack. Her blonde ponytail matched Sally’s, who she was sitting next to, and her red fleece zip-up draped over brand new breasts, just coming in. Katie gasped and said quietly that she didn’t know the word douche until her junior year.

“How old are you guys?” I asked them openly: I was curious and I figured since they were talking to us anyway that it wouldn’t be an unwelcome question.
“Eleven,” said the girlfriend, just barely looking up from her cell phone, “well, I’m eleven. She’s eleven. He’s twelve.” We nodded our heads.

“Yeah. I’m in eighth grade.” Our charming pajamaed buddy proclaimed.
“No you’re not,” said the girl in red. She seemed to be constantly disgusted with this boy.

“Okay, I’m not.”

“So,” I started, “Friday night! You guys got some big plans?”

“Just relaxing, watching some cartoons.” I expected the witty non-eighth grader would give me a more interesting response.

I egged him on, “no parties to go to?”

“Oh, yeah, that too. Crazy parties.”

“Sometimes I wish my parents weren’t divorced,” Sally’s seatmate in red spoke up, “that way I wouldn’t have to spend my weekend doing chores.”

An awkward silence overcame the back of that city bus. The sixth graders looked like they had been suspecting such a comment, that this classmate was one to break the mood of light conversations and push over a cloud of her own family-induced darkness. I was somewhat waiting for one of the girls I was with to offer up some light-hearted insight to her situation but as the dark cloud sat there, so did the silence.

“It says a lot about your outlook on things,” our suave friend in plaid stated, “that you want your parents to get back together just so you don’t have to do chores.” She shrugged, blocking off the wisdom aimed her way and bouncing it toward us, amazed with the very real outlook this child managed to somehow have. Sally eventually asked him if he was dressed for pajama day, which he was, and their stop came soon after. We all said goodbye and as the wise jokester departed, he yelled, “follow me on facebook!” and left us laughing.

I spent the rest of my day astounded by that ten-minute block of interaction I had with those kids on the bus. I thought about how much older I look in my head at eleven than those kids looked; I thought about their vocabulary and quick whit and I thought about the content of their conversations and how all of this seemed so beyond what eleven should be. What I forgot to remember though was how eleven actually is.

When I was eleven I learned what a blowjob was. I was interested in boys and I first started wearing makeup. At eleven I dyed my hair for the first time and I started my period. I wrote my first and last name on my homework and inhibitions were suddenly a huge factor in everything I did and took part in. When I was eleven, I got my first cell phone. Eleven didn’t seem young to me when I was eleven. It was cool. Middle school! Sixth grade! I hated it when I was babied.

I feel that the movement to “not grow up too fast” is impractical. When you’re young, you want to be older. When you’re old, you want to be younger. That’s jus the way it is. What’s important is that when you want to be young, be young. And when you want to be free, be free. I’m still working on not letting inhibitions rule my world—I’m positive not only love, but salvation is on the other side. Just ask Maude.