Red

I had this friend in elementary school and junior high who had long, red, curly hair. It was amazing, iconic, unforgettable hair.

I keep seeing that hair everywhere. Last week at the grocery store in the parking lot. Yesterday as I was driving up to Jonas’s montessori to pick him up. I’m pretty sure she lives out by me and that her daughter goes to my son’s school.

I have yet to be close enough to her to get her attention without driving across a parking lot or honking my horn, or jumping out of my car and waving my hands and looking like a total weirdo. But at some point I’m probably just going to because I desperately want to hug her and say, “TARA! Remember in seventh and eighth grade when you and me and Courtney and Rene would meet at your house every morning before school and sing Wilson Phillips songs on your dad’s professional microphones and sound equipment and then Courtney’s dad would drive us to school in the back of his truck because it was still legal to drive 13 year olds around in the back of pickup trucks back then? That was SO FUN. We should totally get together and do it again some time.”

And then she’ll probably pull her kid out of my kid’s school and screech out of the parking lot every time she sees my giant orange minivan pull into the grocery store. Because that would be weird for me to say that. Right? No really, I’m asking. I sort of can’t tell anymore.

It’s possible I sometimes get overly enthusiastic and nostalgic.