I am wearing a Swatch™ watch. Maybe I owned more than one. Probably more than one. But only one of them is burned into my brain. There were many like it, but this one was mine. Without it, I was nothing. With it, I was “cool” (no I wasn’t). 

Black, round. I think the face had black/white pin-stripes. I know that in its final form, I had added two of those face-protecty rubber’ bands. One black; the other white. Twisted into a SPIRAAAL!!!! (guitar noise!!!)  

Do I specifically remember wearing it with my acid washed jeans, with the ankles folded over and cuffed tight? To show off my boat shoes? No I do not, but I probably did. Was I wearing it with the peach-colored Izod™ shirt, with the collar up? Who knows, because no-one could have possibly bothered to look at the wrist of a person that thinks they look cool in a peach colored Izod™ shirt. 

Oh, I’m in physical, cringing pain as I think of that boy, and write this. He was a good kid. Nice kid. Loved all of his classes. Liked getting approval from teachers. Pervy little twerp, though, to be honest, and more desperate for attention from the girls in his class than any one of them should have had to put up with, but that’s for another time, maybe.

Did he own Tom Cruise-Risky Business sun-glasses? Sadly, dear reader, he did. But he wouldn’t be wearing them in the hallway at school though. He wasn’t Corey Hart, or one of the kids who could actually pull off this look (I’m looking at you Joe Bleichart). 

One thing I definitely remember about that particular version of me, was that I had no idea of who I was, socially, or wanted to be socially. I was a happy, satisfied kid with success in academics, and decent enough at a sport (soccer) that I had tribes who accepted, and genuinely liked me. I suppose I wanted to be something different than what I was for the same reason as everyone else, because it comes naturally in adolescence, and because marketing and media encouraged that instinct. I wish I’d had more actionable compassion for the other kids at school who felt similarly (I’m guessing all of them), instead of having my head up my own socially, status-insecure ass. Maybe I’ll go look at my yearbook, now.