The scrapbook that is home

Half a lifetime later I find mixed tapes in cupboards, hats in plastic boxes shelved high above reaching distance, rollerskates with pink wheels and white leather and reminisces of rinkside makeout sessions.
My life is woven into objects that photographs never could have entangled.

I put the tape in backwards. It has been so long that I forgot where the tapey side should go. There is a fast forward button on the stereo but no eject. No little icon to drag, no keyboard with which to contend. I cannot scratch the disc or erase the file, I can only jump rope with the innards of the cassette if feeling so inclined.

I am not.

Because this is a tape that I received in high school from someone who is now married with a child with a real adult life that we never could have imagined sitting under the stars on the hood of my car next to his elementary school on a hill talking passionately of Nirvana and Shakespeare.

Most of my teenage belongings consist of journals and documents, prom photographs and gossip laden folded up notes. The actual objects are few and far between. So when I find the tapes and hats and rollerskates and candlesticks and books I sit and I melt into childhood.

When feelings were everything and mixed tapes could say for you what was impossible to say yourself at 17.
So what has changed, right?

I found stash of blank tapes. If only I could find the record button.