When You Were Young

when i was in kindergarten, i met a boy named jordan. i don’t remember meeting him. i remember knowing him when, one day before dismissal, he came up and asked if he could be my friend. i was a painfully shy kid, and he was friendly and fun and talked a lot, so i said yes. we were the kind of friends that kindergarteners are: buddies during snack time, sharing the best crayons when we colored, and never even thinking that it could go outside of the walls of our school. it was fine. it was great. i had a friend. he’s the first friend i ever made on my own. he’s the first person who made me realise that i could.

my next clear memory of jordan comes when i was in fourth grade. in the morning, i was talking to kristen, who was one of my only friends at that point. she was looking forward to gym, because it was dodgeball day. i was not; i was always picked last in gym class, no matter who the team captains were. you don’t pick the slow-moving kid with glasses if you want to win, and grade-schoolers can be cruel. jordan heard, though; i remember that, because i remember him looking at me as i pointed out how much i wasn’t looking forward to gym, and i remember my cheeks burning because this popular kid heard about my problems.

we had lunch, and math, and finally gym to round out the day. gym, and dodgeball, and riley being one captain, and jordan being the other. and jordan, who won the coin toss, who got his pick of any kid in our class, picking me first. he didn’t even hesitate. he called my name, he pointed to me, and he smiled at me when i walked up to stand next to him. when riley laughed and picked derek for his team and taunted jordan about how he was going to lose, jordan laughed right back and told him that with me on his team, he was definitely going to win. (i don’t remember if we won or not. we probably didn’t. all i remember is not hating dodgeball for one day, and that was enough.)

fast-forward another few years, to another gym class in another school. we were doing baseball, which was my own personal hell in seventh grade. my eyesight hadn’t gotten any better, and i was too tall, too skinny, too out of touch with how to move my limbs to possibly make the bat and the ball connect. rules were rules, though, and no matter how far back in the batting line i stood, nobody was allowed to go back in the building until everyone had a chance. i made myself last every chance i could, because by that point anyone who was interested in the sport had gotten their fill and wandered away, and it didn’t matter that i stuck my elbows out and hunched over the plate and swung and swung and swung at balls that kept whizzing by me and smacking into the fence.

this day, though, this day was the worst day, because i had to be in the middle of the lineup. i don’t remember why; i only remember the sick feeling in my stomach, the feeling that the class would laugh at me as i stood there praying i didn’t move the wrong way and get hit with the ball. when i got up to home plate, i grabbed the bat and stood there and stared at the pitching mound, and jordan smiled back at me. i was clearly nervous; it was no secret that i hated gym, wasn’t any good at it. there were two kids on bases in the field, and someone in the back made a comment about striking me out; one of the kids on base groaned about how he was just going to steal home. jordan kept smiling as he walked off the mound, came up next to me, and quietly asked if he could show me how to hold the bat, how to stand. he demonstrated how to swing, and told me to just try to hit it gently. “just like this,” he said, and held the bat out in front of himself. bunting. i knew the name, even if i’d never been able to pull it off before. “hold it there. you’ll hit the ball.”

i nodded. i didn’t care. i wanted it to be over with.

he walked back to the mound, looked back and me, and then took a few steps forward. “just like i said,” he told me, and i nodded again. he tossed the ball very gently, and i held the bat out, and miracle of miracles, i bunted the ball. “run, run,” he yelled, making a ridiculous dive for the ball, kicking it out of the way of any of the outfielders who were catching on and heading for it. “first base!”

i ran. i made it to first base. i laughed, because i had never been able to do that before, and jordan turned and smiled at me before returning to the mound and striking out the next three people at bat, one right after the other.

now consider this: i met jordan almost twenty-five years ago. i remember these things, these small kindnesses, the things he didn’t have to do but did anyway. he probably doesn’t remember doing any of them. he probably doesn’t even remember me, at this point, and that’s fine. i remember his kindness when there wasn’t a ton to be had, and i remember him smiling when everyone else was laughing at me.