Old habits bearing sweet memories...

Isn't it funny how a silly, old, ingrained habit can transport us back into a lifetime ago with only the quickest blink of an eye? Well, today my own silly, old, ingrained habit brought me back to another time, another place and it got me thinking about why some things stay so much a part of us even in the most fleeting of visits.

It all came flooding back with a simple foil wrapper...

I was sixteen when I had my first real boyfriend and even today I can't look back on my time spent with him and not smile. For the sake of this little post, let's just call him 'Harley' because I'm sure he is married and happy and I will always respect him too much to embarrass him with memories probably long forgotten for him. The memories, actually, are pretty deeply buried in my own mind, too, but for some reason... a foil wrapper will always send me back to that space. It's a space filled with so much learning and trusting and fearing and treading lightly in the new territory of a whole new kind of relationship while jumping ALL in fear-be-darned. And I can still feel every insecurity turning into confidence with just that big old reassuring smile from Harley as he would easily reach to pull me over close to him every time he came to pick me up in that beat-up, old, rumbly '69 Cutlass Supreme of his.

It was seriously, THE coolest car! Looked much like this except it had black hood
stipes and was a little more beat up... I tried to find the person who listed this
picture but couldn't so I will just give Anonomous Photo Credit appreciation for now.

Oh, those first days of teenage freedom... yep..... 1989 was a pretty sweet year! Harley was a fewwwww years older than me but that didn't matter to us and though my parents had reservations at first, it wasn't long before they realized and admitted that they trusted I was respected and safe when I was out with him. He never brought me home even a minute past my curfew, he wasn't afraid to meet my 6'6" intimidating (teddy)bear yet Paul Bunyan lookalike lumberjack Dad and he also had an 'in' with running in the same crowd as my older brother who didn't hesitate to attest to the fact that Harley was one of the most decent and honest friends he had... and that was saying something when coming from a brother five years older who wouldn't necessarily think the greatest of having his kid sister around at some of the hangouts and parties he went to. It all worked out though, and it was the absolute greatest year of my life... so many adventures, so much fun! And all those moments came rushing back like a gift I hadn't even known I'd been in wait for today with just the careful unwrapping of two little foil-wrapped chocolate balls I had pulled from the freezer for my after-MASSIVE-rowing-machine-workout congratulatory treat.

I don't often have foil-wrapped candy in the house, not being one for sweets, but I do have a real weakness for Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory chocolate and Enz'z brother had sent us a huge basket of it at Christmas, a big bag of these little chocolate balls included; I vacuum-sealed and froze most of it and it will last for months since we only pull out a little treat piece, or two, at a time when chocolate cravings surface. Sometimes I realize that even though I'd been looking forward to a post workout reward, I don't really want it after I've cooled down and just return them to the big chill but today, I still did. My weakness overtook me and after I had sweated my butt off and had a shower I was still looking forward to the little chocolates in wait on the counter. And so I reached for and began unwrapping as gently and carefully as I could in my always hope that I can step up to the challenge of a perfect unwrap... leaving not a single tear in the foil. It's funny because I never think about or plan to carefully unwrap even when I know there is foil to be had but my fingers just automatically start with hope. These Rocky Mountain foils are not easy, thin and extremely delicate but slowly, I managed to get both covers off the chocolates with no damage to either wrapper!

I first tried to smooth out the green foil but I ended up the foiled one when it tore almost as instantly as I had begun. The gold one though, was much more cooperative thanks to my being wayyy more careful in my quest, and as I sat to gently smooth out its every wrinkle my mind began to drift back to that year spent with Harley... He really was the sweetest soul. He was tall and burly with the warmest big ol' smile that just melted me every time he sent it my way accompanied by the quickest flash of a wink. And... gentle, he was so incredibly gentle-hearted beyond both of our years put together. He was quiet in his sureness but he was the friend that everybody trusted and knew he could be counted on, always. I think what I loved most about him was that he didn't even have the slightest clue of just how admired he really was because that wasn't what was important to him. I learned really quickly that where Harley went, so did everyone else and he was just as loyal to his friends as they were to him.

For all that was purely good and perfect about Harley, he did have one habit that wasn't so great... he smoked. It was the '80s and most of my friends smoked because it was just what the cool kids did. I was probably the only one of my friends who didn't smoke, though I did try it more than once. Anyhow, it was Harley and his friends smoking addiction that I blame for bringing me into my foil wrapper addiction that still overtakes me. See, Harley was patient enough to sit through my basketball games and wait for me through my track practices just so we could spend a little time together before my early school night curfew so I was also patient in sitting off to the side while he and his friends fixed whatever was in need of fixin' on his car that week just so we could be near each other. And so I would sit either on his house porch or out on the curb close to the action where inevitably there were multiple cigarette packages tossed in wait for smoke-breaks. There was always at least one that would have an empty foil and the guys were all happy to let me check and take said empty foils which I did always put back just in a little different shape, is all.

My mind disappeared as my fingers worked the foil, carefully folding and re-folding, again and again, to make way for as perfect a straight tear as I could make. And as my hands directed themselves, I found myself lost once again in driving out the back roads on hot summer days to swim at the high-bridge river, the bridge I was always too chicken to jump off of but I loved watching the fearlessness of everyone else as I tiptoed in from the riverside, wishing that for just once I could make the jump along with the rest. That memory brought a huge giggle for me today because it also brought back the memory of one summer evening after a trip out to the swimming spot and a bush party set for later that night which my mama said I was not allowed to go to... I remember being SO MAD! And like an every day teenager my response was "EVERYBODY ELSE IS GOINGGGGG!!!" and her response was "Well, if everybody jumped off a bridge, would you then have to do it too???" and my response was "Everybody DID jump off a bridge today... BUT I DIDN'T... I walked down to the river side and I TIPTOED INNNNN and I was the ONLY ONE that DIDN'T JUMP and I hate you so much for even saying I can't go to the party!!!"... Another long story, short..... I was allowed to go to the party because if my judgement was obviously good enough to keep me from jumping off the bridge, it was hopefully good enough to keep me from drinking at a party in the woods where surely there would be alcohol available. Teenagering with caring parents was as hard as it was fun sometimes!

Harley and I had been together for most of that school year but it's those last months of summer I hold onto most. Fishing on the river, long drives to nowhere, beach days, bonfires, the drive-in theatre, parties, swimming... everything that makes for a full summer of teenage awesomeness. But then my mind suddenly switched as I tore the last of the foil pieces apart. My thoughts turned from the beautiful to the fear that a single family meeting had brought forth toward the end of that beautiful summer.

My dad had been offered a work transfer back to our hometown of Thunder Bay... a sixteen hour drive from where we had lived in Southern Ontario for almost five years. The whole family, me included, voted to return to the home we all had missed. My mom was the only one who would have happily stayed put because she loved it there but the rest of us still missed home and being surrounded by forests and mountains instead of being surrounded by one town leading into the next and directly into a city before connecting to another small town. I missed camping and skiing and I was so excited to be going home again... until Harley came to call on me that evening. I remember being so torn, just like this last piece of foil I tore from the chocolate. I tried to tell him, probably a hundred or so times that night, but I couldn't make myself actually do it. Instead, I slowly pulled away without saying anything just simply because I couldn't make myself say goodbye to him. I left earlier than the rest of my family to stay with my aunt until our house sold because my mom didn't want me switching schools mid-semester in highschool and I still regret not asking my aunt to stop by Harley's house as we headed out of town so I could explain... so I could apologize. I was so awful in my fear of having to say goodbye to someone I cared so incredibly about that I just disappeared without even leaving a hint to him that we were moving. Probably my only real regret in life was the goodbye that Harley deserved and I was too terrified of.

But there's a plus to no goodbyes... I remember him only with that smile I felt so safe within and never the moment of seeing the disappointment I know he had in me for just running like I did.

So as I finished with the tearing of sections, the comfort of Harley again took me over. And I was back to sitting closeby him, tearing and folding cigarette foils into tiny flowers, smiling again as I heard the guys' voices and easy laughter drifting back over all those past years. Life was just so easy then. Friends, foil flowers and sweet glances that can still set me aflutter. And even though my heart never did completely heal from that goodbye I so horribly ran away from, I am grateful for every rare and fleeting memory that finds me while lost in a tiny piece of foil. Why I ever folded flowers when I so despise flowers, I'll never know... but I did, and every once in a blue moon..... I do again.

It's not about dwelling in the past or wishing things had turned out differently... but it's more about celebrating the life that brought me to who I am in the present. I don't yearn for that time, but I do cherish it in the fleeting moments it calls me back in memories. I think it's okay to allow ourselves those sweet moments that helped to shape our nows. I learned a very important lesson in that terrible goodbye and it's good when those foil memories flood back, even as incredibly intermittently as they do because I know I never want to be so thoughtless toward anyone ever again. I wish I had explained, I wish I had apologized, I wish I had said goodbye. Still, I look back with thankfulness that I even got to live the little piece of perfect that I did.

What are the silly littles that take you back to a different time and place? Are you brave enough to admit to getting lost in a time there's no going back to?