Boys Will Be Boys

When I picked up Anju this afternoon, she was watching the new One Direction trailer.  I was pleased to see that a minute in, a 40-year-old woman was buying a lifesize cutout of Louis.  "That's my future," I thought, and I forgot even to feel ashamed. 

The thing is, I freaking love boys.  Boys and their boyness.  No matter the age.

There's a very particular memory I have from college, when Stephanie and her roommates and Kevin and his friends and I all went adventuring in the woods across the street from campus.  It felt like an amalgamation of fantasy lands, so we dubbed the exploring MidNarniWartsLand.  After we'd traipsed and jumped and nicknamed each other, we popped out of the treeline into a field.  Cameron immediately held up his arms as though defending himself with a sword, and Kevin and whats-his-name charged.  They had an epic imaginary duel, and they threw themselves to the ground and acted ridiculous.

I was utterly charmed.

Ever since Roy and Aaron allowed (or were forced to allow) me to accompany them on their forest adventures, I have longed to be in BoyVille.  The imagination, the danger, the nature, the silliness.  It's wonderful.  And even though I love, even though I've done it for most of my life, I've always felt like an outsider.  The easy affection between boys (which is mostly why I'm obsessed with One Direction, they are freaking adorable with each other) and predisposition for mockery and punching and smiles--that's what I love, but I never felt like I was supposed to be that way.  Because when I ran off to play with the boys, my girl friends stayed back.  Eventually I stayed back too.

I don't know why that is, and I hate it, and I'm jealous.  But despite my outsiderness, whenever I see boys being boys in that particular way, I just fall in love a little.  Because that's how life ought to be, or how I want my life to be.

It's also, I think, why I love books like Bridge to Terabithia, where it's the girl who creates a forested fantasy world, or Beren and Luthien in The Silmarillion, who are Tolkien's original epic couple, but who fight together and love together and lose together and find together.  And that's what I want.  I want a boy with whom I can be a boy.  I hope that makes sense after the entirety of the blog.

Also, I'm totally going to pay money to see that One Direction movie.  If only I can convince Anju to ask her mother if she can go with me, but make it seem like her idea...