I took my little brother out for hot dogs, ice cream, and some hardcore dance sessions during the car ride to retail therapy outlet mall.
Every time I think I know everything there is to know about that nine year-old boy, he surprises me.
He no longer eats his hot dogs plain. They are topped with ketchup and mayonnaise now.
His favorite song range from Lana Del Rey to Daft Punk (which he calls Drift Punk, and he tells me that EVEN our dad knows that’s their band name).
As I shift through the three radio stations I generally listen to, he directs me to stop at the ones that play the first song that catches his attention.
I lower the music to point out the airplane in the air, or the dog on the sidewalk with its owner, and he nods and smiles quickly, and turns the music back up.
He still misses our cats and dogs that have passed, and doesn’t quite understand where they go.
He closes his eyes and gets lost in the music.
He moves his head to the beats and pretends to know the lyrics as he lip sings.
Sometimes he actually knows the lyrics, and I look over in surprise, and he gets shy, lowers his eyelids, and stares away with a secret smile.
He gets the cone with vanilla ice cream, dipped in chocolate, with some crushed nuts.
He has an ice cream mustache the entire time, and while I am driving – I am frantically looking for something to wipe his mustache away. I forget in moments like this that he is nine. He can wipe his own mustache – if he really wants it gone. He is almost growing out of all these things.
He will eventually stop asking me to open his coke, or rip open the ketchup packet, or help him pass a level on a game. He will start doing these things independently.
Along with this – our dance sessions while riding in the car will become rarer.
It’ll start becoming embarrassing for him to do so and he will become old enough to stay home by himself and pick playing Halo 4 over going to Target.
I like to write about these emotions, these memories, because one day they will fade as well. I won’t remember them quite as vividly. I won’t remember that I was wearing my aqua button-up shirt with skulls and roses – that is way too big for me now because I’ve been losing weight. I won’t remember that E smelled like my dad’s aftershave because he says it holds for 72 hours. I won’t remember that we actually saw a woman who was crossing the street get hit by a car with our own eyes. I won’t remember that he didn’t get ice in his drink because he says his Dr. Pepper will start tasting like water. I won’t remember that he had a small red pimple on the front of his nose. I won’t remember that he wore his Champion sweatpants backwards for the second day in a row.
One day it won’t be hot dogs, ice cream, and dance. For E, it might be girlfriends, skateboards, and staying up late. For me, it’ll be a career, paying off student loans, and going to sleep early. I hope we always at least vaguely remember a time when life was simpler. Moments where we were infinite with David Guetta blasting in the backyard, ice cream mustaches, and soda highs.
–S.
The Messy Middle 🖤 