Walking along 84th Street this afternoon, between York and First, I passed a family group headed in the opposite direction, toward the river. I fished myself out of the stream of consciousness in time to see the two little fellows who were bringing up the rear.  They might have been short for their age, but they were still very young — seven at the most, and I’d plump for six. I have never seen two boys less inclined to play, much less to roughhouse. On the contrary: they had the air of sixty-six. They were walking along with their hands in their coat pockets, their heads inclined toward one another, talking with bemused smiles, as if they had already seen everything.

I wish I’d taken their picture, especially as the camera was in the palm of my hand.

***

I have many reasons for being not regretting my youth, for not missing being young. Tonight, my reason is this: when I was young, I wished I were somebody else more or less all the time. Sometimes, I wanted to be the person that I hoped I’d grow up to be, but this image was understandably vague. I draw no small satisfaction from the general sense of having fulfilled that dream, whatever it was. Perhaps it’s because one always wants to be kind to children that I idiotically believe that I’ve done the kid that I used to be the kindness of turning into Moi.

Most of the time, however, I dreamed of being somebody else — somebody definite, this or that actual person whom I could see down the hall or across the room. My innumerable crushes were collaterally instructive, because each one involved imagining someone else’s life. There was nothing vampirish about my longing. I did not want to commandeer someone else’s existence; if I dreamed of being someone else, I did not want to have become someone else. But I spent every waking moment wanting to pop out of my skin.

I can’t think what made me so dissatisfied with my own life, but it had a lot to do with living in this body of mine. I don’t hate it, but I don’t really acknowledge it. To me, it is somebody else’s body, and I am not that somebody. I could complain about it for hours, but dissatisfaction has nothing to do with the case. Children often suspect that they’re adopted, that they’re really the children of (fascinating) offstage parents. I was adoped, and I understood that there was nothing fascinating about where I came from. Maybe that was it. Having been adopted, I wanted a new body to go with the new status.

I was well into my forties before I understood, profoundly, that my intelligence and my sensibility are no less physical attributes than my height or my elusively-colored eyes. (When Kathleen tells me that my eyes are “really green today!” I know that I am feeling well.) I now understand this paradox: wishing that I were someone else precisely because I am who I am. When I was young, however, such insights were beyond me. And, in any case, I no longer wish that I were somebody else. Not at all! I’m quite pleased to be me. I have succumbed to abominable conceit: I’m amazed by my good luck. But that’s now.

***

Those little men, walking all but arm in arm along 84th Street — I saw them for four or five seconds at the most. For minutes — hours — afterward, I wanted to be them. No: I wanted to be both of them, and there you have it. You can’t be two people. I wanted to be their friendship, their mutual comfort. I wanted it even though I know exactly what it is, from happy personal experience. My own desire to be somebody other than myself began to fade away when I met Kathleen. My often acute dislike of myself, complete with arioso tropes of suicide, took a while to disappear entirely, but it did disappear, because of the great niceness of being with her. I was thirty-three when Kathleen and I married; which means that I have not yet spent quite half of my life as her husband. But let’s say that I have, because I’d like to acknowledge that I want for nothing in this happy half.

Those smart little boys, though, reminded me that I wanted for everything when I was their age. — for everything beyond the food clothing shelter basics. I so badly, badly wanted someone to talk to.

Lucky fellas! I wish them every happiness.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 8th, 2009 at 11:59 pm and is filed under Gotham Diary. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.