Nothing, and Everything.

02 May 2002

It feels like the days when you would hang out because there was nothing else to do. A night out with the boys. Never mind that three out of four of us are married. Or that we end up in a bookstore (we are such ragers). Still, there is a sense of killing time, joking and talking about nothing, or stupid things, or the ridiculousness of our jokes about stupid things. Our very own group of sitcom characters. Seinfeld is mentioned at least once. Who wants to be George?

I haven't spent an evening out in such an unplanned manner for years. Evidence that I have grown up? Or just become a stick in the mud? My life isn't boring. I simply feel tired most evenings, and I'm happy to go home and eat and sleep and cuddle with Lisa every night.

J eats too much and blames me for being a bad influence. Des tries to remember his useless trivia but we reckon his newly discovered high blood pressure might be occupying too much of his brain. Dave, as usual, says little (but it's funny nonetheless). We end up in the SciFi/Fantasy section, and I stumble across a parody of Tolkien called Bored of the Rings. I thumb through it and realise that most of it will be lost on me, even though I saw the recent movie. I look at the endless shelves of books and think about how poorly read I am, relatively speaking (I live with an English teacher, after all).

There is a gaggle of teenage girls on the train home. They look about fifteen or sixteen, talking loudly and exuberantly about clothes, boys, mobile phones. I can't help but listen and watch. Were kids the same when I was fifteen? I can hardly remember. They've met a boy somewhere in their travels tonight. Dean, meet Nicole, Rebecca, Anne, I don't catch the other names. He looks a couple of years older. Actually, he looks like he belongs in a state-of-the-moment boy band, but he is rather quiet. Reserved? shy? or putting on an air of detachment? I can't tell. The girls elicit a few words from him every so often. They are flirting shamelessly, and he is clearly enjoying the attention. I think of how I would have managed in his place, fifteen years ago. For starters, I don't think I would have ever been lucky enough to find myself in such a position. I would have been scared, unsure of myself. Not yet comfortable in my geekiness (and certainly not boy-band material like Dean). I fiddle with the ring on my finger and suddenly I'm straddling two lives. How did I end up happily married, settled, a family man? I think about the future, how little I knew, I picture what these kids will become, so full of life and the excitement and hormones of adolescence. Perhaps one of them will be travelling home late at night, fifteen years from now, watching Mini Moo and friends go about their teenage ways. Things will change, things will stay the same. They talk about boyfriends and flirting and the girls try to find out if Dean has a girlfriend, what he does, where he lives, gently sussing out who he likes best among them. He doesn't give away much. I get the sense that he is playing with them, not maliciously, but casually enjoying the attraction of these girls he hardly knows.

I feel young and old at the same time. Things don't seem so different fifteen years later. Dean gets off the train and the girls gush over how spunky he was. Did anyone manage to enter her number into his mobile phone? Who did he like best? They are so vivid, present, living in this moment. I try to imagine their hopes and dreams. Will they go to university? Overseas? What kind of careers will they find? Will they find love? Will they get their hearts broken? I wonder if they realise how far they have already come. Can you tell anything about a person, really? I close my eyes and listen, as one by one they reach their stations and the carriage grows quieter until I am left in silence, thinking of home and a warm bed and my beautiful pregnant wife and everything I have ever really learned and treasure inside.