What happened to that girl I knew?

I swear, all the time now, I find I am looking at myself from across the room. I am so curious as to how I got here. Is it really possible that I am going to be 32 years old? That's about the oldest I have ever considered myself aging to and even this is new. When did I get to this point? How have I been with the same guy for a decade? How am I the mother of two children?

Not that there is anything wrong with any of those things, it just seems like more of a daydream than my current reality. Sometimes I fully expect to wake up and find myself in this old coffee house in Kent, Ohio. (In trying to remember the name of the coffee shop, I just had to call my best friend from high school who I haven't talked to in forever and she could not remember the name either! I have now given both of us something to sit in the back of our brains and mock us for being old and losing precious brain cells!)

Her name was Tracie. I have this odd way of making very important friends with girls named Tracie (or some such spelling of that name.) When I was growing up, my best friend was Tracy. They I met Tracie and she and I were great pals. These days my closest friend in Charlotte is another Tracy. So bizarre, but I digress...

Tracie and I used to hang out at this coffeehouse. There was a guy there they called "fuck you Bob" because he was crazy and used to give people thing finger all the time. You would just look over at him and he'd catch your eye and give you the bird. Random and yet hilarious. The coffee house, probably completely over exaggerated in my mind now, seems almost magical to me now. We were seniors in high school, so we felt very grown up to be on campus at Kent.

It was a huge old house. I am sure that it would have made a great bar. There was a counter where you would order and tables and chairs in no particular order every which was you looked. A flight of stairs took you to the prime seating on the second floor, overlooking the downstairs. I can honestly say I cannot recall having sat downstairs. They would have music sometimes, which was amazing.

My guess is that we rolled up there in Tracie's Ford Fiesta. That thing was a mini death trap. It was brand new and cherry red and we loved it to pieces. She had a name for it which I cannot recall and I am certainly not about to call her again for something that random. I smoked my first cigarette in that car, but that is another tale for another day.



We would go to this coffee house and smoke cloves and write poetry. I had this beautiful blank book she had given me where I wrote. I still have that book. I should open it again. I wonder if it smells like coffee and cloves.