The Shack Was Our First Home

I lay in the backseat of the Subaru, waiting to arrive.

 My eyes are rolling behind my eyelids like they’ve unhinged themselves and decided to start a career as miscellaneous marbles. 

We always play our specific songs loud when we drive around. It’s unspoken -- if we can’t talk, we let the music fill every inch of silence. 

There’s not a lot of common ground between us, but there is a little bit and that’s enough. 

We’ve done this since we were 15 and just old enough to drive, just old enough to be tipsy on teenage freedom, to notice age but not old enough to feel the weight of it.

I’ve watched things change and I’ve watched things stay the same.

I’ve watched as we’ve grown into brand new human adults, with sharp jawlines and filled out faces. 

We played card games and Stone-the-Witch, we stayed extra close even when it was awkward, we laid in grass that didn’t belong to us.

 Despite not being able to feel the weight of our freedom we felt the weight of parental expectations, heavier than the New England humidity in June. 

We drank till we were silly and trespassed when we were bored, we let our heartbeats sync to the beat in the little red Subaru. 

We chased sunrises and crossed our fingers for sunsets.

 We escaped our small town for brief moments and talked about what it felt like to be leaving home, how we’d never make the mistake of staying in one place too long. 

We waited to arrive, excited and scared to leave each other behind. 

I stand next to The Shack, our young adult playhouse. The small green tool shed in a larger green backyard. 

An early teenage revelation, we spent every waking second within the underdeveloped plywood walls. 

We’d trap beetles under empty cups and cohabitate with slugs and snails. 

We would whisper about failed romantic relationships and scream about our freaky family situations. 

We were in competition with the sounds of the green backyard but the cicadas would always peep louder than we could.

We’d talk about the people we had been in the past and the people we hoped to become in the future, what time really meant and how quickly it seemed to be passing. 

We would steal cigarettes from the porch and try not to focus too much on our growing oral fixation.

We wanted to grow up fast, but wait- 

Isn’t that scary?

 No -- not really, let’s not talk about it anymore. 

We hung on every moment despite time not being a weight-bearing beam. 

The Shack was our first home: one-bedroom, open-concept, no kitchen with off-site laundry. 

We spoke over the yellow ashtray by candle light, kicking each other when there was a lull in conversation. Stretching our legs against the pastel stained rugs, we swapped spit and childhood trauma. We were waiting to arrive, to become something permanent without really knowing what that meant.

I sit on the floor of the apartment, it’s small and perpetually hotboxed. The music is loud and horrible, we didn’t pick it but we tolerate it because it’s not our party. We aren’t talking to each other, all four of us in separate corners but it could have been separate countries with how our experiences differed. 

This is something new for us, typically it’s chaotic casual- the shack and everything homey and familiar.

But we’re older now, more social.

So we frequent weird parties with people who have also grown into brand new human adults. 

They talk about pills and acid trips, plans to move across the country and how horrible their 10am class is. 

They talk about people who aren’t there, girls they have vested interest in and times they’ve almost died. 

The boys say things like Dude! Bro! Man! And the girls laugh and try to bridge the gender gap with light teasing and nicotine. 

Late teenage emotions, It’s like a speed round, a dizzying dance across the spectrum, across everything you’ve felt since age 15 forced through a sieve and beat until fluffy and 19.

I don’t like to watch intoxication hold personality in a vice grip but I tolerate it because it’s not my party. 

The conversation dissipates:  

Would you fuck Paul Rudd?

FMK. Fuck, marry, kill: Paul Rudd, Paul Rudd, and Paul Rudd. 

Cmon! CMON! Gun to your head, would you fuck Paul Rudd? 

You can watch late teenage masculinity twist up the boys faces. 

You can almost hear their inner turmoil:

Would I fuck Paul Rudd? Is it funny if I say yes? Or does that make me gay? What are the other guys saying? Are they nodding? Would they fuck Paul Rudd?

I lay in the backseat of the Subaru, I stand next to the small green house in the larger green backyard, I sit on the floor of the apartment and I look around. 

I look at our faces, how we’ve changed, how we’ve stayed the same. 

I listen to our voices, they’ve dropped a couple octaves but they still want to know intimate Paul-Rudd-related details and if the future is as terrifying to you as it is to them. 

I look around and realize I’ve waited to arrive in a million different destinations. 

My favorite moments have come in sips, dips, and huge swallows. 

I have done the dizzying dance, the endless drive, the forgettable evening, the candlelit conversation.

I have done early to late teenhood in brilliant technicolor. 

I feel lucky to have arrived, to have been exactly where I needed to be, always, even when it tore me to pieces, left me inconsolable, and broke me down to bare bone. 

These people, these places, these things, they have been horrible, annoying, beautiful, comforting, company. 

I look around, I’ve changed, I’ve stayed the same. 

I’ve arrived, without knowing the full weight of what that means yet. 

I’ve arrived.