Starlight and That Old Allure

I remember being fourteen years old. I remember the cold stars, the cold night air after my first dance on New Year's Eve. The dance itself was not particularly significant, and yet it was.  It was the first time I ever felt beautiful. I was wearing make-up for the first time and my older sisters had dressed me up, put my hair up. And, inexplicably, while at the dance itself, I had felt a connection with a boy in the ward that I had never considered before. Maybe those things had something to do with the sensation I felt when I stepped out into the wintry night, the one moment from that night that is emphasized in my memory. I was with a group of kids, getting a ride home, but they weren't people I really knew or liked, even though they were in my ward. I can't remember why, but we ended up standing outside for a few minutes before piling in the car. The others talked or complained; some were tired since it was after 1am, a delicious, mysterious hour to me-I had never been out that late before. I stared and stared at the "cold fires" in the sky and felt I had passed into another world, sometime that night, without realizing it. While the haunting track of "Gollum's Song" ran through my mind--my sisters and I had listened to The Two Towers soundtrack while getting ready earlier in the evening and its eerie feel had gotten a hold of me. I felt that beautiful, quiet, yet overwhelming wonder at the indifferent world. And I was filled with hope for something to come.

I haven't thought about that night in a long time. I never wrote anything about it in my journals either. And I probably shouldn't publish this on my blog. I'll end up coming back and editing pieces of it obsessively for the next couple of days.

I think my point is that I view the world a little bit differently now. In my early teens', I always felt I was about to happen upon something amazing and profound, something that would make me blaze and shimmer like a burning star, transform me into my truest self. I already glowed at simple, delightful things that seared and mesmerized me--rain, trees, the cold, music that held the elusive qualities that were waiting for me. Those things still make me glow. But back then, I believed I would find this great alluring something. Under all the horrible embarrassments and skirmishes, the silly dramas of middle school, and the insecurities, there was always that hope that was almost certainty that I would find it. It beckoned around every corner, in every look, in the wind outside. It was there. And I guess the whole point to this long, dramatic entry is that I miss that feeling, even though it feels impossible that I could ever have felt that.

I know I'm not that old, that I'm barely considered an adult, but I feel very separate from that earlier time.