what a fitting time. for my creative writing class, one of our assignments is to write a nostalgia poem, and i've chosen to write on that golden time, the childhood love. (i'm nowhere near done with it yet, so don't you even think about asking me to share it.)
but i've had four "loves." i'm choosing to share them all because i think they accurately represent stages of my life.
the first, the very first: he was my neighbor growing up in our second house, the first one i remember. he was kind of quiet, but we would play all day every day, hopping between our backyards and sometimes running down the street to the park. we never kissed, never held hands, never even told each other we "liked" each other, but we were best friends and the air was golden. i moved away from that house when i was about 10. by then, we had both realized that i was a girl, and he was a boy, and we both understood that this excluded me from pokemon battles and baseball tournaments and hunting games. (i was a little more bitter about it than he and the rest of the neighborhood boys were, but we won't go into that here.) he was my first love, my first "crush," and i haven't spoken to him in years. we went to the same high school and talked once or twice, but it seemed awkward, forced. not that i wouldn't potentially like to be his friend again, but there are a few things that memory must keep unsullied, preserved from the present, and for me, this was one of them. i drive by his house every now and then and see the antlers on the fence, and i remember when he shot his first one. i see the aspens on his front lawn and remember how, sitting on that rock, he once made fun of me for sucking on the ends of my hair. i see the branches of his walnut tree over the roof of his house and remember gathering them up in the fall, and hopping the fence and jumping in our neighbors' leaf piles. i see that back fence and remember the milkweeds that used to grow there and the monarchs we'd see and try to catch, and the stickiness from the weeds on the palms of my hands. it was, i guess, that golden-bright, best friend, brother-sister crush of childhood i can barely remember, but i love remembering it in all its vapor just the same.
the second: the incurable awkwardness of middle-to-late elementary school. he was in my class in second, fourth, and sixth grades. he was tall, skinny, dark-haired, nerdy, and i was convinced we would be married. in fact, i distinctly remember imagining what our children would look like. the last day of sixth grade, my best friend told him in front of me that i had a crush on him. not a great move, best friend. i'm still mad at you for that. with all the mortification possible in an 11-year-old, my face lit red like a siren (or my hair) and i tried gallantly to laugh it off. it probably sounded more like a cough or a momentary strangulation of the windpipe. needless to say, i was phobic of him all through junior high, despite the fact that i had "moved on," as they say. we're friendly acquaintances now, and neither of us have ever mentioned that uncomfortable revelation, nor the fact that we were even good friends in elementary school. (and rest assured, i no longer imagine what our children would look like.)
the third: oh, unquenchable fire of adolescent love! the hormones that raged like a thousand rivers in my veins! the chick flicks that fueled my weepings and longings! he walked into my class in 8th grade, a new kid, and i fell instantly in raptures. he had atrociously spiky hair, was tall enough to be cool, and had the most beautiful smile my 14-year-old self could have ever imagined. the sunset of eighth grade saw the bloom of our friendship, and ninth grade cemented my never-dying love for him. until, that is, he turned his sights elsewhere. the mountain ridge girls. no longer had he any time for me, a still-awkward, geeky timberline girl. it was the other side of the hill for him, the girls who (i imagined) were interesting and blonde and, well, let's face it, fully-formed. oh, the lamentations of my heart! the worthlessness, the weighty knowledge of my insignificance! oh, it bore down upon me with force, prompting many dramatic arabesques in my journal: tormented entries which recounted the tortures of seeing him, my only heart, walk past with naught but a glance in my direction. and then the clouds would part, and angels would shower down pure joy upon my head when he would smile, or stop to talk, or even impart to me the most blessed of gifts he must reserve for only his closest friends--a hug. oh, there was a very flowery entry chronicling every instant of the night he asked me to dance at a stake dance. i was truly overcome! and then we went to high school, and the feelings still lingered, though i'm happy to report the drama subsided a little. in fact, a lot. actually, i could step back from the situation and look at him and say, hey man, you've kind of turned into a
and finally, the latest and greatest, the best friend love. the story has its own drama (far too much, really), but to keep it short i'll just say he asked me to prom junior year. through the sneakiness of a friend i obtained the intelligence that he was actually interested in me. that completely boggled my mind, i had no idea what to do! you have to understand, that had never ever happened to me before. i was like..... WHAT THE CRAP AM I SUPPOSED TO DO RIGHT NOW?! i'll admit it now, i was semi-indifferent. i liked him as a friend a lot, but didn't know him super well, and could never have guessed that he liked me. after prom, he asked me to be his girlfriend and i said okay. i had no clue what i was doing in a relationship, but sure, i enjoyed it. until it started getting rocky. long story short i broke up with him (for what i thought would only be a temporary break, but that didn't quite fly with him.) months of drama ensued. i tried my best to act mature, but failed miserably. another long long story short, i never realized what i had until i lost it. the drama fizzled, and he and i became best friends again. best friends. there was the occasional tiff, stemming largely from miscommunication. for the most part, we revived our friendship to full force near the end of senior year, and continued it throughout the summer, and into the fall, and now we're closer than ever, even while he's away on a mission. so now the question: do i love him? i can't exactly answer that simply. yes, i love him, but not in the usual way. it's like i would do anything to keep him, but also to make him happy, you know? i wish he was my brother, or my son, so i wouldn't have to deal with the confusion of romance and just be able to keep him near me forever. am i making sense? no, probably not. but suffice it to say that i love him enough to count him on this list.
PHEW. long enough for ya? if not, watch this beautiful video, which is kind of inspiring that poem i'm supposed to be writing.
i've got my love to keep me warm -- ella fitzgerald & louis armstrong
sun hands -- local natives
beast -- agnes obel
Ooo this video was so good. I'm glad I took the time to watch it. :)
ReplyDeletei so enjoyed this. like really.. so so much.
ReplyDelete