I received a package the other day in the mail from an old friend. She had been one of my middle school English teachers and was one of those young, hip teachers that leave impressions on students because they’re pretty but also willing to entertain all of our (pre-)teenage antics. She was a mentor of mine, so we had a special relationship and continued to be friends even after I graduated college. In middle school, we shared a journal where I could write thoughts and activities so she didn’t miss anything. I really wrote about anything and everything. I was so impressed that she had kept this journal, even the flower petals I had pressed between the pages were still intact.
On one of the entries, I told her that on our next outing together, I’d like to get dippin’ dots. Now, have you had dippin’ dots? They use to sell them in stands at the mall, where people would scoop the small dots of ice cream into cups for you. Now, they are just dispensed from machines because the nature of the ice cream does not require much administration. This wouldn’t have meant anything to anyone if they read it in passing, but even now, I get a particular feeling about dippin’ dots, the way you might feel about something that’s not great, but still want because you don’t want to miss out. When I think of dippin’ dots, I can’t seem to remember what they’re like, probably because, I cannot pinpoint a precise memory where I got to try them. Considering how much I wanted them, I think I would remember such a memory. Dippin’ dots was a weird luxury because they were overcharged ice cream sprinkles, essentially. I would stare at kids who got to have them, thinking that their parents were probably rich enough to buy them something so inconsequential. Food was supposed to be filling, not experiential. So asking to have them was an expression of something a lot more revelatory, especially so because I never would have asked my parents or older sisters. They might have said yes, but it was just not within what I considered their realm of possible.
Reading that entry now, I think about how much that says about my adolescence, to want to try something that I might not even have liked. There were so many things I was trying to say about how I was figuring myself and the world out, but didn’t know how to say them directly.
The things we say when we don’t think anyone’s listening, including ourselves.
