Remembering Becoming Me

I've been flashing back to this certain memory of an event in my past lately. It is so strange, it just popped up out of the swirling abyss of my mental sludge and keeps floating up to the top. I hadn't thought about this event in ten or fifteen years and boom! out it emerges and now keeps nagging at me. I figure I'm meant to write it out.

I was fourteen or fifteen years old and we were all on a church retreat. I was heavily involved in our church growing up and I used to go on retreats and choir tours and mission trips all the time. My best friend, Brian (aka B), was a churchgoer as well and we'd crack ourselves up over many, many miles of lonely roads going here or there. Man, we sure were goofy but it was such innocent fun.

This retreat was at a college up in the mountains of Georgia or North Carolina, I can't remember, and many other youth groups from various churches all merged at a college for a long weekend of study, praise, singing, meeting others, and just being together. We slept in dorm rooms and spent the day in classes and doing activities.

At this point in my life I was very into skateboarding, punk rock music, and girls. I hated posers, zits, scrambled eggs (me and B's term for the confusion caused by chicks), and all orders of dorks. These likes and dislikes were pillars of our life and we were hardcore and ardent supporters or completely anti whatever we decided was cool or totally beat. Black and white. We both were quite radical and alternative souls in our Southern Baptist group, but well liked and good kids.

We would have our meals in the college cafeteria and these times were the highlights of the day. We'd get to see other groups, scope out the chicks, look for like-minded individuals like ourselves, and generally crack each other up with our exclamations and observations. B was and is one of the funniest humans on the face of the earth, and I"m sure he'd say the same about me, and I swear we both had 6-pack abs from all the years of complete hilarity we shared together.

There was a youth group from Canton, GA, that had some skater and freestyle kids in their mix. They made their way over to our table and sat with us and we all hit it off right off the bat. It was like we'd all grown up together we melded so well. Well, lunch ended and our groups dispersed in various directions for the afternoon activites. B ran on up ahead to do something and left us as we dwadled our way to the dorms.

One of the guys from Canton mentioned he had brought his skateboard and so had two other guys. We talked about how we'd love to go riding down the hills of the campus and it suddenly occurred to him that, in fact, he had brought an extra skateboard too. That's all it took.

We went to the dorm room, grabbed the boards, and set out to explore the campus. The guys were about as good as me; they could ollie higher and better, but I could do G-turns and powerslides better, even on some unfamiliar board. We were having a good old time, the classes and activities and retreat completely gone from our minds. Skating and laughing and swapping stories and just being kids, and completely lost track of time.

Well, it started to get dark and we all were getting hungry. We head to the cafeteria to get some grub and the place is locked up and empty. Reality began to settle into our thoughts and we were all quiet. The campus seemed different, kind of alien, and not at all the welcoming skate park of the afternoon. I handed the board back to my new pal and walked alone to my dorm.

I entered into the main room and my entire church group was gathered there having a serious prayer session. When I opened the door, all eyes in the room lifted from the bowed position and locked on me. Instantly everyone was in a flurry. I walked straight into the room and began to sit down but one of the chaperones, B's Dad to be exact, sternly said, "Go to your room Mark, right now." It was cold and aloof as I passed by all of my church group, barely daring to look at B on the way out.

In the hallway the stern voice became an angry voice that demanded answers from me.
"Where have you been?"
"Do you know that we've been very worried about you?"
"Why did you go off like that?"

On and on. I couldn't stay in the room with Brian that night, I had to have a counselor in my room with me. I didn't sleep much, wondering over and over all night how I could just break away from everyone and go skating with some folks I hardly knew. And I felt bad because I had just left B, just split and went off, and that was what really made me feel guilty. The next morning I didn't see the Canton skater guys in the cafeteria and we all packed up and went home. The feeling on the trip back was as if the entire bus had passed judgement on me, distanced themselves. No one was rude, but no one tried to talk to me either. Even Brian was quiet and we just listened to Oingo Boingo or something on the headphones and wished we could get home quicker, even though home was boring as hell. And when I did get home, I didn't say anything to my Mom about it. I just took my skateboard and went riding, wondering about the guys from Canton and trying to ollie higher and better.