The Golden Birthday

As he sat on the train going home, he mused about the school trip he had taken to France when he was 15 going on 16. He remembered the day he left their family home, when the family was still together, if only barely. He couldn’t remember the rest. He remembered seeing dad in the car, ready to drive him to the church where the other kids were meeting up. he remembered the suitcase dragging behind him down the stairs and the weight of the new back pack he had gotten from the army navy surplus store that already had his name on the straps. In that bag, he saw a whole bright future of travels ahead of him, and this was just the start. He remembered this was the last time he was ever going to walk down those concrete steps, the last time he was going to walk out that door. But he didn’t look back. He knew if he looked behind him, he wouldn’t be able to hold back the tears. So he kept walking, straight ahead not just toward Dad’s car, or the church or the air port, or even to France, but to the future. A future in a new place far from where he lived now. a new school, new friends, real friends, hopefully a girl. And then after that college. But not just any college, Brown, or Yale, Stanford. A real University. Everything was starting today, right now as he stepped out of that door. The past had been hard, but it was over, literally behind him. The fat brace-faced awkeward kid was going to stay in that grey house with the red door. He was going to stay with the fighting and the lonely weekends. All he had to do was keep moving forward, to France, to confidence, to the future. Don’t look back, don’t look back, he said over and over again, counting his breaths as if he had just noticed them for the first time. Don’t look back, over and over again all the way to the car. He didn’t even look back to see mom and Jeff wave goodbye. From this day forward, he would never look back again.

And now, over eight years later, on a train in Chicago, going to a cold, strange, roomless place he now called home, even though it didn’t feel right to do so, it felt like looking back was all he could do. He remembered that optimism, that indomitable spirit, that hope for the future, that promise to himself to always move forward. He remembered that those two and a half weeks in France had been the happiest of his life since he walked out of that door so many years ago. The back pack was gone now, and the memories were fading, but the feeling of being young and starting over were still there, locked away deep inside like a lost favorite toy. The feeling of anticipating your Golden Birthday on a sunny summer day in Paris in the year 2000.