Bumping Into The Old Flame

It’s not unnatural for baby boomers to feel like their youth is a thing of the past. Technically these days we range from middle-aged to seniors. The question is, are we at peace with this? Mel Miskimen thought so until she unexpectedly encountered an old flame, and tried to feel the heat.

Oh. My. God.

There he was. At the ward table, getting his ballot. Damn he looked good. It had been 30 years since I had seen him and he had aged well – Harrison Ford-well.

I was a poll worker, registering new voters. It was mid-morning and there were no other electors, except for. . . him. I didn’t even know that he lived in my district! The last I had heard about him was that he had moved to Thailand or was it Taiwan? (somewhere tropical and third-worldy). He was working with a relief-type agency. He made being cause-y so. . . sexy.

He chit-chatted with the ladies who handed him his ballot. He turned. We made eye contact.

“Andy!” I said, thanking God that I put on make-up.
He gave me a long look. He must have been remembering. . . .

We were 23 and worked at a park with an outdoor pool over the summer. It was a stupid job – selling concessions, maintaining the locker rooms (which weren’t really rooms, since the locker area had no roof), keeping the patrons safe from foot fungus. The pay was lousy, but my tan was great.

Of the guys who worked there, Andy was Numero Uno on the girls’ To-Do list. He was tall, lean, tan, hair touched by the sun, he rode a motorcycle, he had that kind of body that was fit in an I-don’t-try-too-hard-to-be-fit kind of way. And, he always had a girlfriend.

So, I was really surprised when I ran into him in the student union not so long afterward. He had transferred. Was single. And invited me to a party!

I wore my form-fitting, very Bohemian black turtleneck and a pair of show-my-butt-off jeans. Back then, I was very weight conscious – I weighed myself every day. I counted calories. I measured my portions. If the bathroom scale edged past 112 pounds, it was time to panic. I had long blond hair. Not really. My real hair would have been a mousy brown, but. . . you know what they said about blondes. Some still say it.

Andy and I “hooked up” as they say in today’s vernacular. He was a great kisser and when we went back to his place, it was Andy, Andy, Andy!

Now, he stood in front of the rickety folding table. My voter registration cards in a neat pile. He said nothing.

Maybe his memory needed a nudge.
“Jefferson Park?. . . 1975?. . .” I said.
Nope. It wasn’t registering.

I named names of people we had worked with – real characters, who no one could forget. I brought up instances of near firings, reprimands, long lunches, the time the authorities found all that pot growing in the woods near the statue of Thomas Jefferson.

Again, nothing.

“It’s me! Mel!” I said.

He shook his head. Not in the affirmative. “Sorry,” he said as he shrugged and proceeded to cast his ballot.

“I’m an idiot!” I said to the ancient Hmong lady as she filled out her new voter card via translator. She looked at me and smiled.

Had he sustained some kind of head trauma that caused him to have no memory of our sexcapades?

Or. . . maybe the sex wasn’t that great. Maybe his moans and groans weren’t about pleasure, but about frustration and dissatisfaction. Or. . . maybe I let myself go to the point of being unrecognizable?

Oh. Crap.

The polling place filled with eager new voters and I didn’t have time to wallow. I did that after the polls closed in front of the mirror in the privacy of my own bathroom.

Yeah, my face had gotten looser. I pulled it back two inches. There. All I have to do is walk around with my hands on my face like this and I’ll look 30 years younger. Well. . . sort of. When Andy and I were, you know, doing IT, I wore contacts. I can’t wear them anymore (trifocals) and Lasik surgery is totally out of the question – my corneas are the only thing on me that are too thin.

My breasts? Back then, the girls were free and easy. I used to get by without wearing a bra. Now? I’m well into menopause. I need a garment designed by a structural engineer.

It took me a couple of days – thank God, Oprah had several make-over shows! – to get beyond the self-loathing. You know what? The blond hair. The 22 inch waist. . . that wasn’t me. And the methods I had to go through to maintain that version of me were, well, extreme. They took too much energy and time and were borderline abusive and oh, so fake.

I’m average. Height. Weight. Hair color. Nothing wrong with that. So, I guess I haven’t let myself go. I’ve just let myself be.

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