Aging, Via the Hot Guy Down the Street

My parents have lived in the same neighborhood since I was 10 years old. It was the kind of neighborhood everyone wanted to live in; a pool, playground, tennis courts, and games of flashlight tag during the summer. One of our favorite things to do as we got older was boy hunt. I think I was around 12 when one of my best friends told me she had seen the "hottest hunk ever" outside of the house that was down the street.

12 years old- the way I remember it

I wasn't sure if I believed her, this was the same girl who convinced me that oral sex was a type of kissing, which I believed for quite an embarrassingly long while. (I had a Godly mother, and asking her was NOT an option) She was adamant though, he was the hottest guy she had ever seen, besides Charlie Sheen, who she had met once and was madly in love with him. The topic was forgotten until a few months later when another friend of ours confirmed that there was "a super hot dude" living in that house. She said he was in college, her older sister knew him

Over the next couple of years, before I was driving, I would hope to catch a glimpse of this boy/man, but I never did. His car would be parked outside, but he remained my elusive girlish crush. I forgot about him as I got older, but because I had made a point to see if he was outside each time I passed his house, it became second nature. I wouldn't even think about it, but when ever I'd drive by, I would always slow down and do a quick inspection.

Today, as I was driving, something caught my eye, something raking leaves in a blue windbreaker.

Could this be it?

The moment I have been waiting for since I was 12 years old?

I slowed down to an embarrassingly slow crawl, and as I drove by he looked up and waved!

WAVED! At me!


As I waved back, trying to take in the moment, something seemed "off."

Yes, the person who waved at me was indeed, a "super hot dude." But he was OLD! All these years I had been waiting to see the hot college freshman, it never really occurred to me that he would become a middle-aged man.

Don't get me wrong, this man was definitely handsome. He looks like the kind of guy who could pull a MacGyver with a q-tip and string. But, he was not the young stud I had envisioned all these years.

In my mind, there are some things that don't age. If I imagine playing flashlight tag, we are all 12 years old again. Even though I still know, and see, those people regularly, I always picture us as kids growing up together.

I'm 27 years old, no spring chicken, but it still surprised me that the "hunk" was obviously in his mid to late 30's; a MAN! All these years I had failed to notice when his parents moved out, or when parties stopped happening there, or when the swing set was put up. He was an adult and so was I.

Has anything like that ever happened to you? Where something completely minute in the grand scheme of things turns out to be a giant spotlight?