Teen trauma

I am surrounded by adolescents--at the school, at the bookstore, at church, at my brother and sister's houses. You can practically hear the blushes blossoming, the hearts crashing, the zit cream wearing off, the hopes spiraling up, up, up. And it reminds me: it's hard to be a teen.

A friend of Madison's called her up yesterday to relate that what she thought was a first date maybe wasn't so much. He asked her to meet him at the mall for the movie, they watched said movie (presumably had a good time), and while they were waiting for their parents to pick them up, sprang this on her, "So, if anyone asks, we're not here together. It's just an accident that we're both waiting by these doors." He didn't bother to make it clear if he was embarrassed by her (and a complete jerk) or if perhaps he wasn't allowed to date and just didn't tell her? I'm just trying to come up with a scenario in which this teenage boy has any sliver of hope for a Decency Intervention actually working.

For another thing, we live in Alaska. There's lots to do outside, provided you don't mind freezing in the winter, you can actually get someone to drive you anywhere out of your neighborhood, and you're a sporty person. The indoors . . . well, the indoor entertainment is where we fall short. With not a lot of city afternoon destinations to speak of, my friends and I usually debated between bowling, pool, a movie, or the mall. With that in mind, I blithely sent my nephews and niece to seek birthday fun at BP Billiards. I should have titled this post, "Three underage teenagers walk into a bar . . ." I guess I had noticed that there was a bar of sorts off to the side, but the main focus of the joint seemed to be pool. Whoops! They were a little mortified. That's how I found out that there's nowhere in town for someone under 21 to play pool, unless accompanied by an adult. Crazy!

But, you know, it's hard to be 10, too. Or 6 or 23 or 30, etc. Every time I advanced a grade, I'd look back at the last one and think, "Wow, now it's hard. I didn't know what hard was last year." A case for looking back (and forward) with perspective, I guess.