Those were the days my friend...

There are not many things that I enjoy reminiscing about when I think back to the days of my adolescence. Being a bit overweight, a little geeky at times, not running with the popular crowd (I ran with the artsy kids) and basically mediocre at all sports...Never quite as snazzy on the fashion tip as my peers, it was irksome to be sure. I'm of mixed race and never could get the black swagger thing down pat, I seemed too "white" for black people to really want to claim me as one of their own. Mind you, I was dark skinned enough to get trailed by store security personnel and to be told, "Nigger, why don't you go back on your boat to Africa?" As my friend Quincy says, how can I go back to somewhere I've never been? Anyway.

Would that I had grown up in Montreal. When I finally managed to get popular enough to be elected to student council, I realized that it stopped being a badge of acceptance. Being different in Montreal, on the other hand, would have been a fine place to live, and the pursuit of popularity would not have been so important, I think. But then again, maybe not. Teenagers are notoriously stupid about stuff like that.

However, I did manage to make some awesome friends in Toronto during my teen years. I had a blast doing theatre and chilling with my friends. I had found early on in life the one thing I did better than anything else (although I wasn't aware of it at the time). I had really cool acting gigs that gave me the opportunity to travel to neat places. I had great grades without having to try very hard. But there was something that stands apart in the singularly wonderful things of my adolescence. One something that takes me back and makes that whole hellish period all alright.

Video games.

How many fabulous hours of hosing around did I spend in front of the Nintendo, playing all the Mario Bros. Games that were available, Metroid, Mike Tyson's Punch Out, Donkey Kong, Tetris (which would brand itself on my brain for hours after I stopped playing)...Whether playing alone or with friends, it was always all good. I never got mad at the Nintendo. Not even when my sister threw it at me during a particularly nasty altercation and it gave me a bruise did my love for the Nintendo ever abate.

And so, I spent hours playing Nintendo with Eileen yesterday and this morning, and I felt young again. But the good kind of Young. Not the young and socially stupid kind of Young, not even the tireless and physically sound kind of Young (I am suffering some backache and tension from pressing on the controller buttons with all my might), but the kind of Young when you really could forget all your pressing problems in the face of a brightly coloured virtual world and all of your mistakes are do-overs, even when you die you get to come back to life, and winning is the best thing in the world (but not the only thing in the world) but not so much that you ever tire of finding new challenges to beat. (Incidentally, Eileen's Korean name is Ye-Young. Coincidence? I think not.)

I feel good. I feel young. But I've hosed around long enough. It's time to get back to work.
It's time to grow up.

For now.