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| This is me smoldering, people. |
Do you remember that? Do you remember when you wanted someone so badly but had no idea how to get them? Do you remember that ache? My god such sweet pain. When you remember that, how can you not have anything but empathy for those poor teenagers.
Oh that hunger of adolescence. It was physically painful. And then when your heart was broken. How on earth did we survive it?
Tell me about your first love/lust. I want to hear it.
All I remember is crying to the point of throwing up and opening my eyes, morning after morning, thinking this sickness would never end. I wrote a poem, "Your face is my disease." It was awful.
ReplyDeleteIt's wonderful! It just got a big chuckle out of me!
DeleteIt pains me to think about my adolescent yearnings, thoughts and actions. Ugh. My first was spending the entirety of 6th grade staring at the back of this Derek guy's head wishing I could run my fingers through his hair and kiss his tan, athletic neck.
ReplyDeleteIn the eternal words of Tyra Banks, you look fierce, girlfriend.
I look as fierce as anyone wearing pearls can look.
DeleteYour sister was with me one night, driving all over TWO cities, looking for him. It was awful, and the sweet woman tried to tell me how pathetic I was being, and I didn't listen. She's a saint.
ReplyDeleteI've ignored a number of sweet women myself over the years. And I was much older so I didn't even have the excuse of youth.
DeleteI watch my granddaughters, concealing this phase from me. They learned no boundaries from their mother, and the fifteen year old had to make an enemy of one nice young boy with inappropriate touching. Learning the consequence of inappropriate behavior was a tough lesson; I hope I survive.
ReplyDeleteHaha. I'm sure you will.
DeleteIt's not easy to be a teenager.
The first time I fell in love was in 11th grade to a great guy named Pat. Sadly, my parents were going through a hateful time in their marriage, causing me to mistrust relationships and love. When he said "I love you" I dumped him.
ReplyDeleteAh well, it wasn't meant to be...
Probably not. High school romances so rarely are….
DeleteYou know what's funny? I have your senior picture (as seen above) somewhere in a photo album. For some reason, I kept all my friends' senior pictures. Those little card size photos we all handed out.
ReplyDeleteThat is funny!
DeleteI kept my friends' senior pictures for a long time too. After so many moves though, I think I finally started getting rid of some stuff. It's a shame. It would have made for an awesome collage.
I was fortunate that there must be something appealing in extreme introversion, because I was spared a lot of the agony of pursuing the opposite sex. That doesn't mean that having 'caught' them was a total picnic for me. My second girlfriend was way more advanced than me, being the youngest of six she was worldly in a way I just didn't understand. I was almost glad for a time when she went to college and I was still in high school, we corresponded via letters and I was much better when I had time to pick and choose my words more carefully. My writing voice is much closer to my internal monologue than my spoken voice, although I'm much closer as an adult than as a teenager.
ReplyDeleteI feel the same way about writing/internal monologue.
DeleteI have the fortunate misfortune of still being in contact with my first love. There are things he says that just melt me and things I know about him I will never accept, let alone begin to even mildly tolerate if we had lived together. That's the craziness of love though, right?
ReplyDeleteWe still talk. We have both moved on in life, we have finally grown up some and we are still friends. I still love him and we share that crazy love, it's just from a distance because it's best for both of us.
Interesting. It's nice that you can still be friends. I don't know many who can maintain a friendship over such strong feelings and so many years. Impressive!
DeleteOn my 20th birthday I blew out the candles and wished he would call. Thirty minutes later, he did. I loved spending time with him, and then I broke up with him "to keep my options open." Fifty years later (one year ago) he sent me a birthday card. I kept it, but I haven't responded. I think I'm a coward.
ReplyDeleteWOW!
DeleteThat's quite the cliff-hanger. What did the card say? Anything beyond "Happy birthday" and "Hope you are doing well?"
Dating as a teenager was a fairly decent experience. My only issue was running like a jackrabbit when someone started to care what I deemed too much. My best friend called it, "running down Lauren Lane." One boyfriend also accused me of being "miserable when happy." He wound up being a good friend after I ran down Lauren Lane, but his words stuck with me. I still try to be careful not to get too miserable when I'm happy. :)
ReplyDeleteThat is a really interesting insight.
DeleteOh goodness you were/are so beautiful! You were one of the lucky ones where that awkward phase passed you by? I actually did not outgrow my awkward phase until college. So alas, no teenage dating for me. I was quite repulsive in high school. I ended-up with imaginary boyfriends instead - Leonardo DiCaprio and Axl Rose. And even my imagination had them break my heart. :(
ReplyDeleteFunny you should say that, because I felt incredibly awkward and unattractive the day I had this photo taken. I also did not have much success dating in high school and never had a boyfriend.
DeleteSIGH.
Tall girls tend to be undatable in high school, I think.
Damn your skin is just as pretty now as it was in high school. Lucky.
ReplyDeleteI have so many of these lovesick stories I don't even know where to begin. I can remember listening to George Michael's song "One More Try" in 6th grade and crying into a pillow over the guy I had a crush on. I think I was really good at lusting from afar - it was much safer than actually trying to start something with the guys. When I did make it known and god forbid they showed interest back, I usually stopped having the crush shortly thereafter.