The summer I turned 14, that boy waltzed into my life. I'm sure you know the one I'm talking about - literally and figuratively here. Your first love. It wasn't as if we were strangers who met each other's gaze across a dimly lit room, and after talking and laughing the entire night, decided that we were soulmates.
No, things started off far more innocent than that. We'd already met. Some years before, actually. I'll spare you the starry-eyed details, but suffice it to say, something deep within me shifted one day that summer. I noticed his mop top of black hair, his ocean blue eyes, even the way his smile made me giggle inside. It didn't hurt that his chiseled chin and broad shoulders channeled a young Jake Gyllenhaal.
But it was those eyes. They seemed to look at me in a different way. They pierced right through my soul.I was hooked, and for the next 10 years, I nursed a hopeless crush on him. I'd go out of my way to pass him in the hallway, giving the ever-popular, over-enthusiastic wave.
A few months ago, as I was rummaging through a drawer filled to the brim with memories - pictures, report cards, the lonely Minnie Mouse Pez dispenser searching for her Mickey - I found my seven volumes of journals. Amid the furious scribbles and girly doodles, my eyes began to glaze over with each new entry in which I professed my undying love for the boy. Words like true love and phrases such as “I see myself spending the rest of my life with him” littered each page, in all seriousness, to my 14-year-old self.
No, things started off far more innocent than that. We'd already met. Some years before, actually. I'll spare you the starry-eyed details, but suffice it to say, something deep within me shifted one day that summer. I noticed his mop top of black hair, his ocean blue eyes, even the way his smile made me giggle inside. It didn't hurt that his chiseled chin and broad shoulders channeled a young Jake Gyllenhaal.
But it was those eyes. They seemed to look at me in a different way. They pierced right through my soul.I was hooked, and for the next 10 years, I nursed a hopeless crush on him. I'd go out of my way to pass him in the hallway, giving the ever-popular, over-enthusiastic wave.
A few months ago, as I was rummaging through a drawer filled to the brim with memories - pictures, report cards, the lonely Minnie Mouse Pez dispenser searching for her Mickey - I found my seven volumes of journals. Amid the furious scribbles and girly doodles, my eyes began to glaze over with each new entry in which I professed my undying love for the boy. Words like true love and phrases such as “I see myself spending the rest of my life with him” littered each page, in all seriousness, to my 14-year-old self.
And all the while, all I could think of was, “That poor girl.”My instinct wanted to reach back in time and shake some sense into her. Didn't she know she was sacrificing who she was all in the name of some guy? Shame on her.But my 14 yeae old self wasn't the feminist I am today. Maybe I didn't want to be. Maybe I was innocent enough to go after the fairy tale. Grand social statements be damned!If only we could look back through the lens of womanhood. We could all learn a thing or two from our girlhood crushes.
And so in honor of the Boy I'll Never Forget, I offer these generous gems. I hope my 14-year-old self is listening.
And so in honor of the Boy I'll Never Forget, I offer these generous gems. I hope my 14-year-old self is listening.
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