Self-Reflection: Funny What We Remember

August, 2022

It appears that I might live well into my fourth decade, having reached my 42nd birthday without incident in spite of sometimes-risky behaviors. My teenage self would have been surprised to know life would be so long. With the assurance of 40 years on earth, I might have made a few different choices…or not.

I thought back to the high school boy who helped me with math during our single tutoring session. He’s been gone for over a year now and from all accounts lived a safe and happy existence. A memory he took to his death was our one and only tutoring session that ended with the grunting moans of two teenagers swept up by the untested lusts that seemed to float through an open window and land on their unsuspecting bodies.

I’d felt great guilt at the time for violating the norms of behavior expected by my parents and our church, but viewed now from a distance, it all seemed so innocent and necessary.

As my thoughts went back to that afternoon, his image became clear. Mason was a tall athletic type who had a girlfriend but felt sorry for a girl living in poverty who might have to repeat her senior year. That was the only explanation for his willingness to help me with math.

The sitcom playing when we entered the house was Everybody Loves Raymond. My little sister was giggling at Raymond’s lines. She told me once she wished he was our daddy and I understood.

To this day, dizziness comes over me when I hear studio laughter from a tv sitcom. When I was 17, laughter from an audience mixed with my sister’s giggles echoed down the hallway and through a hollow ply board door that hid our nakedness.