Retrospect: LF

Self-tutoring about people and events from the past: the tutor mentions LF.

When I was 12, LF was 13. I was in grade 6, she, grade 7. I never knew her personally, but I overheard her conversations as well as news about her. She went to my school, and was even in choir with me for awhile. I often sat only a few people away from her. I doubt I was ever on her radar, but she was much better known than I was.

LF was a fearless free spirit. When the teacher was out of earshot, LF would immediately talk about going to young adult parties, dating older boys, or doing other forbidden things. I heard tell of her smoking, which may sound almost innocent now, but was a big line to cross there and then: it was “adult” and “rebel” simultaneously. I also heard that she’d offered sex to a friend of mine, a boy a year younger than herself. He didn’t take her up on it, because at age 12, he was still a child. She, at age 13, had left childhood behind some time ago.

LF didn’t have trouble making friends; I never saw her alone. She had a few girlfriends who always seemed to be with her; I think she led them. While I only lived in that small town for three years, LF had been born there. Hence, she was connected in a way only a local person could be, and enjoyed mobility I couldn’t imagine.

LF only got mad about people who got in her way. Yet, in spite of her apparent rebelliousness, I only ever saw that she was polite to teachers or other authority figures when they questioned her. When they left, she might whisper something like “I hope that bit– doesn’t call my house.” However, that was the extent of the transgressions I ever saw her commit.

Decades later, I read that early-age smoking, sexuality, and reckless behaviour – which, taken together, defined LF back then – are signs of sexual abuse. Looking back, with what I know now, I’m sure it was true. Back then, naive and only a kid myself, I never wondered about her situation. Where she lived or went after school, I couldn’t even guess. I got the impression she had a “distributed” lifestyle – that she lived across numerous households, some very close, others more distant. She had nice clothes, and seemed to have more spending money than most kids. Those, of course, can also be signs that the child is being taken advantage of in unseen ways.

I could tell, sitting two seats away from LF and listening to her talk to her friends, that she was different from me or my friends. Kids just accept these ideas, without understanding why – so did I. The freedom she seemed to enjoy, which honestly did look very good on her, I knew I couldn’t appreciate for myself. I wouldn’t have known what to do with a pack of cigarettes, even though my father smoked. From my point of view, smoking just wasn’t something 12-year-olds did. I knew I didn’t belong in LF’s world, even though she seemed to like it. Yet, at the same time, I could tell she couldn’t be like me, either. She had escaped childhood, and enjoyed being “older.” She was never going back.

The confidence and invincibility that LF paraded – it was cool. She was cool. When she was in your class – which didn’t happen to me very often – she lightened the mood. She was never dull to be around, even two or three seats away.

That’s as close as I ever got to LF, and admired her crazy charm from there. She never knew it – she likely never knew I existed. She certainly didn’t need to hear it from me that she was cool.

Source:

raisingchildren.net.au