I didn't grow up with friends coming over. I had an alcoholic father and a mother who took all her calls in the bedroom. I'd creep close to her door, my bare feet quiet on the carpet, listening to her words through an inch of wood.

My father moved out when I was in third grade, and took all his rage and fury with him. The house was quiet again. He returned again, and left again, and by then I was old enough to stay out late with my mother's car, doing anything to keep away--and my friends away--from home.

~~~~

I don't know how to entertain. I want to please everyone -- my alcoholic father, one mistake away from a horrible fury. My sweet, long-suffering mother, too delicate to consider. All my friends who gave me reasons not to go home. How do you entertain when you've never built a home? I spend long hours cleaning my house, sterilizing the surfaces, preparing food, hiding traces of my life.

 How will my friends feel in my space? Will they judge the moss growing on the patio outside my bedroom? Is the toilet clean enough? Do I have to hide every stack of paper? Why can't I just leave all these things as they are, and talk about them like a human?

As it is, I last had people over on Halloween, almost a year ago. I baked a pizza with hand-made dough in the shape of a jack-o-lantern, with pine nuts for its eyes and teeth. I put the camping chair inside and tried to get people to feel comfortable sitting down. I didn't offer alcohol--perhaps for obvious reasons. And everyone was sent home with a treat bag.

It wasn't casual, but there were people in my home.

~~~

How do I hang out with people, casually? How do I invite them into my home without putting on a show? I don't want to be the little girl hiding behind the door. I want the door to be wide open, welcoming my friends inside.

things you think you know about first love.

The stories always said that there would be fireworks. Even when she grew older and read different stories, they still told her that she'd think only of his touch. But it's a summer night and cold in the air conditioned-room, and she knows where she is. She knows that it's past midnight; she hears the ticking of the clock on the bookcase. She knows that the bay windows are before them, ans he feels the room's every light, painting, and doorway. She knows that he's kissing her, and her mind races faster than it ever has in her life. He's kissing her, she's being kissed, her first kiss, she's not a leper! Where does she put her arms, shouldn't it be more romantic than this, why is the television still on, that can't be good for the environment, can it?

She remembers the stories of fireworks; she remembers everything as he kisses her. She feels all the awkwardness of her youth, all the love she's ever spent, all her memories of the sea. She's surprised and a little angry when he speaks: "You can open your eyes, you know." She's mad because this is supposed to be a dream; neither of them should be able to think, let alone speak.

But she's thinking of everything; she can't help it, she can't stop.

It's a summer night. Her dress is blue and tight against her skin. He's kissing her. She can't stop thinking of the little things.

Time makes it easier. The television fades. She forgets about ocean waves, memories, and love. Kissing him grows easier, and she thinks even less as she loses herself to what is.

When she's balled on the rug in his sister's room the next morning, her body again all too alive and rushing with every thought, every touch, every emotion, she wonders if the moment really should be all that matters. Because she's just relived her life in one night, and that seems more real to her than any firework ever could.

We wake up some days thinking about the time that's passed since we last thought about passing time. We're different people on these days, probably unable to recognize our own bodies or come to terms with all that we've done.

Childhood ends the first time we realize the time gone by.

Maybe it was the first time you considered skipping school because nothing you could wear or say or do felt right. Maybe it was when you  laughed at your old journal's laborious and misspelled entries of early morning television and bowls of dry cereal. Maybe it was the first night you spent in a boy's bed. But maybe it's none of these things. Maybe you're nineteen years old and driving to the sea, unable to remember what it's like to be a child or fathom all you've seen.

You remember playing with dolls, laughing at an off-color joke because you didn't understand racism, or crying in your mother's arms. But you don't understand the dolls' simplicity, there's a burning shame when you think of the joke, and you're unable cry in your mother's arms without feeling his touch.

You don't remember what it's like to be a child.

Maybe this is growing up, or maybe this is just time passing.