Jersey Girl, Once
Down the shore
In my somewhat younger years (pre-pubescent and puberty-stricken), I remember driving up to Jersey from Maryland—a satisfying 4-hour trip, just enough time to listen to the Bruce Springsteen box set and think about the meaning of life. Yes, four hours to ponder all the world's greatest wonders to the backdrop of the Boss. As an adolescent, thinking about your existence and where it fits into the larger scheme of things usually involves some silly boy or girl you have a crush on, but won't say a single word to, and how life just won't ever be right unless he/she notices you in a good way. Noticing you in a good way usually involves him/her sneezing and looking up in your direction, and maybe he winked or maybe he had a tic in his eye because the sneeze ruptured some kind of eye booger out of hiding and he is blinking rapidly to remove it because it hurts pretty badly to have some kind of crunchy object stuck to one's eye pupil, but it doesn't matter because he saw you, even if it was through blurry, pain-stricken eyes. In your little naive mind, this is how it all begins, and then the two of you get married...tomorrow. Or at least plan on marriage...tomorrow. Ahh, Tommy Cox, if you only knew how excellent you looked in that Speedo! We were supposed to be together; it all fell in place so perfectly in my silly head as Bruce Springsteen crooned about being "on fire."
During those soul-seeking car rides, as you stare out the window thinking of your own Tommy Cox, there is always a certain way in which you picture your life turning out. You imagine the person you will marry, you imagine the wedding, you imagine the house, you imagine what the wood will look like on your wraparound porch, and you imagine yourself, older, yet elegant, smart and bright-eyed having all the perfect qualities of a perfectly envisioned you. You imagine these things because your young brain can't even begin to imagine what life is going to be really like, let alone begin to understand it. And, you imagine all of these fanciful thoughts because your little mind has no concrete worries to plague it. Those were the days!
As a child, during these car rides, I prided myself on being a girl from Jersey. I was born there, but I certainly didn't grow up there (I lived there for eight months as a newborn—I have no recollection of it). This didn't matter to me, though. Because, in my mind, I had created what I wanted to become, and how I would get there. A man would fall in love with me because I was a Jersey girl and he would play the Bruce Springsteen song, "Jersey Girl" for me one night at some local bar and he would propose to me and then everyone would clap and hurrah at our perfectly fabricated love. Then, on our wedding night, we would dance to Peter Gabriel's "In Your Eyes" and all will be right with the world.
Now baby won't you come with me
`cause down the shore everything's all right
You and your baby on a saturday night
Nothing matters in this whole wide world
When you're in love with a jersey girl
That's right. I wanted to be that Jersey girl who made everyone's life unbelievably easy to deal with. Well, I am not that Jersey girl, and I don't make things easy for people. But I know that I am with a man who loves me very much and whom I love more than anything in this world. And that's all that I need or want right now. But, could I have told the innocent, starry-eyed Kristina that life was going to turn out phenomenally well, without the love of Tommy Cox and without having Jersey girl playing in the background when my future husband just simply asked me to marry him when he got back from Taiwan? There was no clapping, hurrah-ing, Bruce Springsteen, or any of those made-up illusions from my childhood. And, because I didn't even know how I would really feel when I was in love, being the kid that I was, I couldn't have imagined how happy I was when my husband simply asked to be with me forever.
It's not that I stopped pretending; instead I probably am far more fanciful than I was as a kid. I've just gained a better perspective on what is possible and what makes me really happy. When my brain packs its bags and takes flight with a bottle of wine, I let it go. And, then I wait for it to come back—perhaps a little weary and shaky, but, content nonetheless for what it's experienced and felt. It doesn't get caught up on details; it doesn't have the time to, or the desire to. The pretending part of my brain also knows that when it is all done binging in la-la land, there is a sobering reality waiting for it. Sure, that sounds a little sad. Congratulations, I'm an adult. I'll be 29 on Friday. I don't grow any younger from here. That's the stark truth.
I don't care to look back over the years and say, "What happened to the Jersey Girl dreams?" Because I don't give a shit. I still love the Boss and that song maintains a special place in the pretending part of my brain. Because, I like where I've ended up, even if it started out differently and even if the younger, smaller Kristina saw things ending differently.
Why the hell am I talking like I'm dying? Why am I all dramatic with saying "things ending differently"? There is no end I can see except that I am getting closer to being 30. I am talking like this because I went to Jersey a weekend ago and realized I don't quite like Jersey and I don't quite like men in Speedos, and I don't quite like spectacles of love for no other reason than to make it into a spectacle. I am talking like it's the end because I'm at a place where I'm no longer looking into the future imagining what my life will be like if I could just get that one guy. If I'm looking out the window in a long car ride to Jersey listening to some kind of thought-provoking music (Bruce Springsteen, meet Belle and Sebastian), then what I'm usually thinking about is the world, the greater good, and how can I, Kristina Drobny, rescue it from it's impending disaster. (Obama, you can't do it alone!)
So, there you have it. A Jersey Girl, once, in an imaginative kid's mind. I'm not sad to leave it at that.