My son is going into 7th grade. I still remember 7th grade vividly. As a mom, it makes me a little nervous because that’s when I started pushing the boundaries that I’d always stayed within before.

I passed my classes but I was kind of a “bad” kid. I started smoking in 7th grade. I didn’t even like it. Smoking always made me nauseous, so I’d only do it when I wanted to look cool.

And even though it made me want to puke, I still inhaled because I could tell when others didn’t and thought, “What a loser, they’re not even inhaling!” Oh the irony 😂

The only thing I cared about was my hair, boys, and looking cool. I used to meet my BFF and neighbor, Christine, in the street to walk to school everyday.

“Your hair looks good.”

“Thanks, yours too. Got a butt?”

“Yeah.”

I’d hold my hands over her lighter to block the wind and pray that our hair didn’t go up in flames from all the hairspray.

One day we stopped to get our friend Jodi who lived down the block and was also Christine’s cousin. While waiting for her, we chatted with Christine’s Aunt Marilyn.

All of a sudden, the cigarette Christine was hiding in her sleeve slipped from her grasp and fell to the floor right in the middle of the 3 of us.

I stared at the stark white Marlboro lying on the orange terracotta tile, wishing the floor would swallow me up.

I remember getting a mini-lecture from her Aunt Marilyn, but I’m pretty sure she let us keep the cigarette.

I obsessed over it for days, wondering if Marilyn was going to tell my mom, or if she assumed it was only Christine who smoked.

I’m not 100% sure, but knowing Christine, she was like, “Fuck it.” and lit that baby up as soon as we turned the corner 😂❤️

After school we planned to go to Hell’s Kitchen for the first time. No, not the neighborhood in NYC; the infamous place in the woods behind our school that everyone talked about.

Sounds so mysterious, so dangerous, right?! Christine and I felt the same way so we went with our friends to check it out. Some of the guys had already been there and offered to lead the way.

I wanted to look extra cool that day, so I asked Teara if I could borrow the purple suede shoes and purple leopard pants she just got from the Busy Bee Mall. My feet are bigger than hers, so either she was being particularly nice or I stole them from her closet. The details are fuzzy.

After school, as planned, we went through the field to the opening in the woods. This part I remember very clearly. Most of my guy friends wore leather jackets. The kind with the attached belt that would hang down and clank against their acid wash jeans as they walked. To this day the smell of leather, cigarette smoke, and crisp fall air brings me back to that time.

Upon entering the woods it wasn’t bad, just flat dirt; but after walking for a bit we came to a creek. Some logs and a mattress had been positioned as a makeshift bridge.

First log, wobbly, but ok. Second log, ok I got this. But it was the mattress that would be my demise.

Who the hell thought it was a good idea to put a giant, absorbent, MATTRESS in the WATER as a bridge??? And don’t even question why I didn’t know any better to not walk across it. In 7th grade, if all my friends jumped off a bridge, yes, I would do it too; so crossing over a stupid mattress bridge if they all did was a no-brainer (like, literally).

Half my leg went in the water. You know, the leg that was wearing my older sister’s purple leopard pants and brand new purple suede shoe.

Not only was I going to be dead when I got home, but falling in that muddy water was one of the grossest things that ever happened to me in my then 12 years of life. And I definitely did not look cool doing it.

I tried to put Teara’s impending wrath out of my mind. I was finally going to Hell’s Kitchen! There was another, lesser-known place in the woods called Devil’s Den but no one really cared about that. Hell’s Kitchen was the seemingly mythological place where all the mayhem occurred.

Our chivalrous, leather-clad friends continued leading the way through the trees. We got to a clearing and they stopped. I wasn’t sure why until they said “This is it.”

Wait. What? THIS is Hell’s Kitchen???

It was a large, circular spot, cleared of trees, with a 6 foot log in the middle.

It was difficult to mask my disappointment. All I could think was, “I just ruined my sister’s purple suede shoes and probably now have a flesh-eating amoeba for THIS?!”

Of course I couldn’t lose my shit in front of everyone, so I kept trying to act cool and sat on that stupid log and smoked a cigarette like everyone else 😕

We did have a lot of fun though. Good times 😊 I just hope my son doesn’t do the things I did 😫 Luckily, I don’t think Huntersville has a Hell’s Kitchen.