In October of 1981, God smiled down on Fairfax, Virginia, and I was born. I grew to love strained carrots, Cheerios, and boxes. All the mainstays of a toddler's life. I was always an indulged child, and since I loved those Gerber strained carrots so much, my mom couldn't stand to deprive me. I turned orange, and she rushed me to the pediatrician thinking I was diseased. He said to lay off the carrots and all would be well. Everything's okay now. I've lost my lust for carrots, and I've returned to a less intense shade of peach.
At 2, I almost died. My friend K decided that he'd had enough of me when we were playing, and he tried to hit me over the head with a fish bowl. Luckily I have a hard head, and our parents were nearby. K ended up being a mild-mannered guy and has not tried to kill anyone since age 2, as far as I know.
At 3, my goals in life were to either be a princess or to work at Hallmark. Back then things were simple. I was a mini fashionista, my best friend was Teddy (Theodore E. Bear, to be exact), and my hero was a mentally-constructed cross between Barbie, She-Ra, Smurfette, and Lion-o from the Thundercats.
In kindergarten, I had my first boyfriend, J. He irritated the hell out of me because he always wanted to sit together and get the same kind of milk as me for snack time. On the bus home, kids used to sing, "J and Kelly sitting in a tree...k-i-s-s-i-n-g..." It honestly pushed me to my 5-year-old wit's end because I heartlessly dumped him. I think that relationship set my pattern for the next 18 years. I'm sure he's over it by now. His family moved to Culpepper, Virginia, which, until I drove to UVA 13 years later, I thought was some mystical place that didn't really exist. Kind of like what I thought Tappahannock, Virginia was when I was 21.
The first time I ever got in trouble was in 4th grade when I wrote on the bathroom wall. I won't tell you what I wrote, but it got me in a lot of trouble. No swear words or anything...come on, I was 9. I think that can be cited as the point when I became a closet trouble maker. In 6th grade, my 'tude started to show a little more. My friends L and A and I found the sex ed video Dr. D's Birds and the Bees to be extraordinarily funny. Why? PENIS. Yeah, that word is still funny even at 23. I was the one who got kicked out of the classroom while L and A stayed. I sat in the hallway with the 2 boys who had gotten kicked out of their respective classroom during the same video. It was a crucial moment too, because the kids in the video had yet to cross the Bridge of Puberty. I long to know what's on the other side of that bridge.
Later in 4th grade, I changed classes after writing on the wall (but not because of it), and I met H, who ended up being my good friend all these years later. She came to my birthday party and we gorged ourselves on jelly beans, swearing we'd never again eat them. I'm actually eating jelly beans out of my Easter basket right now, so I guess that solemn swear meant nothing to me. H and I went though a lot together in the years after 4th grade. We pioneered the Clueless-inspired short skirt and knee sock look in 8th grade, survived "dates" with guys at the Fairfax Ice Arena (I swear it was the cool thing to do at 14), both got B+'s in chorus class for talking too much and partaking too much "sass back" to our interim choir director, and forever scarred her brother by scattering his tightie-whities all over his room. Luckily their mom had done laundry the day before, so there were plenty to scatter.
The freedom of high school- no more assigned lunch seats, cars, dreams of college- led to adventures where we got in trouble, adventures where we never got caught, too many memories, and too few pictures. Life was filled with cheerleading, shopping, and skipping school to tan at Burke Lake (sorry, Mom). H and I became friends with D and S who taught us the fine art of setting stuff on fire just because and sneaking out (sorry again, Mom); I ran over a tree at 16, but I maintain that Lexus made a faulty car, and I was an innocent victim (sorry, Daddy); C and I decided we were "so over" Woodson guys and discovered that Lake Braddock and PVI were amazing resources for fresh hotties; A could always be counted on for a shopping trip when we were stressed or some comic relief from intense competition practices before districts; and C and I have some real stories about dating college guys when you're just a kid of 17.
To anyone who is not from Fairfax and lives here now complaining of nothing to do, well, you're just not looking hard enough. If you haven't visited Bunnyman Bridge in the middle of the night during the summer, you've missed out. It was way scarier back in Freshman year when the bridge was spray painted with "Bunny Back for Blood," and there weren't cameras and cops lurking, but you'll get the idea. I peed my pants, not much, but enough to count, one night when we were down there Freshman year. C and I had made friends with a Senior because he had a car. He drove us there, stopped the car under the bridge (which is required of all guys trying to scare girls there), and yelled, "Oh my God!" I screamed, "BUNNY!" and proceeded to trickle a little. C says she didn't, but she so did too. If you haven't been to Clifton and raced down the country (well, as country as it gets in Fairfax) roads, you're missing out as well. Take some time to go do that and pull the E-brake for me. Doesn't get much better.
C once said, "The world will end if you don't cheer in college. I swear it will." Maybe that would have been so. Who knows. I got accepted to UVA in November of Senior year- which is lucky since it's the only school I applied to- and I tried out for UVA cheerleading...and the rest is history. Head injuries, extra laps for being late, disastrous pyramids, and all. The idea of leaving all that we had even known cast a dark pall over the Class of 2000. Most of us had known each other since elementary school, and now we were supposed to be okay with spreading out across the country?
I remember the night before H left for school so clearly that I can't believe it was so many years ago. We sat in my car over in Fair Lakes listening to Nelly not knowing what to say other than "thank God we're only 45 minutes away from each other!" No matter how close our schools were, it didn't compare to "4 minutes exactly if you don't stop before turning right on red onto Burke Station." There would be fewer adventures, and so much less would be exciting and taboo as we got older and learned more about people and the world.
H and I have the kind of friendship where, no matter how far we are from each other or how long it's been since we last talked, things will always be the same. She's still the girl who I can rap every word of Snoop's Doggy Style album with and who thinks farting is as funny as I do. I've lost touch with a lot of the others, but I know time with C would be just as awesome as 5 years ago, I have faith that A is still as beautiful as ever, C probably made it to Boston and is selling her own fashions, and the rest of the Woodson cheerleaders are alive and well somewhere out there.
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