It’s Christmas. You’re back in your hometown. Dressed in your favourite sloppy sweater that still lives in your bedroom at your parents’ house. Hair up in a bun, no makeup, old sweatpants and Birkenstocks from 15 years ago. It’s snowing and you’re just trying to make it in and out of the supermarket in three minutes because mom and dad forgot something for Christmas Eve dinner. So you volunteer and think Whatever, I’ll be one minute… it’s a grocery store.
Just as you’ve battled your way through the snow and into the store, there he is. A guy you definitely had a crush on at 14. You’d completely forgotten he existed, yet here you are with the butterflies going the wrong way.
Then: panic. He hasn’t seen you yet, so realistically there are three options and about two milliseconds to decide:
You abort the mission completely and leave, to the disgruntlement of your parents, sans milk. But if he sees you booking it back to the car, you somehow look even more ridiculous.
You strategically calculate where he might move next and figure out whether you can make it to the milk aisle via the cereal and then straight to checkout without being noticed.
You just decide to embrace it and ignore the sad reality of looking like the worst version of yourself the one time you run into someone from your past. You risk the awkward small talk. Why does that seem like the worst option?
The stars really have aligned. Why does that never happen when you play the lottery or go to the casino?
Whatever, not the time.
So you go with option 2 because disappointing your parents around Christmas is never a good call and who doesn’t love living on the edge a little bit? You sneak through the pasta aisle, towards the cereal and then to the back of the store where the milk is. Milk secured, you almost run to the register and just hope he won’t be next in line behind you.
Why do we feel that way? It took me a while to realise that literally every single one of my friends feels the same way about running into people from their past. It’s not even that you didn’t like the person. You might have even been friends. But what is it about those random encounters at your hometown grocery store that make you wish the ground would swallow you whole?
Crush, classmate or friend, the reaction is always the same: need for emergency evacuation.
Evidently, conducting a covert military operation through the pizza aisle feels more reasonable than an encounter from your past.
And apparently, temporarily stepping back into your old life is more intimidating than being a grown adult with a fully functioning frontal lobe, perfectly capable of handling five minutes of small talk.
And yet, there you are, a shiver running down your spine, thinking: I need my mom.
Unfortunately, the day came when I realised that wasn’t going to be much help. I was out and about with my mom and auntie when my aunt gave my mom a not-so-gentle nudge and whispered, “Look, over there. Let’s get out of here!”
Apparently at some point you can be 60, see Gertrude from 1983 by the frozen vegetables and still think:
Oh Christ. Not now.