Okay, so you're in the second grade and there's this boy who sits two seats in front of you in class. You know he never has butterscotch snack-packs and you've forgiven him for this. You also know that last year there was that unfortunate mishap with the vomit, but you've forgiven him this, too. In fact, you've forgiven him so completely that you find it necessary to chase and harrass said boy at any and every opportunity. Last week you almost tried to plant one on him when you had him pinned to the tire swing, helpless in your grasp. But you didn't, for fear or retaliation from his little friends, or worse, from the subject of your attack himself. You had it made and you didn't even know it.
Now, a FEW grades later, you can't even find a playground. Pigtails don't quite make the same fashion statement they used to. And even though pinning the subject of one's affections to a tire-swing may serve a purpose in a particular time and place it wouldn't be something you were daring enough to attempt at the front end of a relationship.
What have we done with crushes? Where did their simplistic glory go? Did we let it slip away the same day we figured out that Trapper Keepers weren't all that anymore? Or was it when our vocabularies were stretched to include words like relatioship and boyfriend? When you finally couldn't remember the words to Hangin' Tough, and watching a PG-13 movie wasn't that big of a deal. God in heaven, I miss those days. I want to flirt and giggle and slap someone in that i-know-you're-just-being-playful-but-that-kind-of-hurt way.
For all of you out there that I've sent straight to nostalgia land, I apologize. We all had a favorite New Kid. Don't blame yourself. (Donnie was the cutest!) For the rest of you who haven't lept from your chairs to call your mom and remind her to never throw away those My Little Ponies (or Transformers for my male readers), I'd like to enlist you in my tiny cultural revolution. Let's bring back the crush. We can do it. Slowly at first. One innocently lustful experience after another. One pop kiss. One tackle on the playground. Anything! Just do it now! Spend too much time staring at the back of someone's head. Plot and scheme to touch someone's elbow. Be juvenile. Be silly. BE HAPPY! just remember how you felt the first time one of these little imagination endeavors payed off.
And i promise to keep you up-to-date on my crush in progress.
October 25, 1998
You meet someone. You notice that their eyes sparkle in a way that you wish your own did. You notice that they sing a little too confidently in the car. You notice they sit indian style in restaurant booths. You like this. You really like this. And as you notice these things, you're subtly reminded of the last person you noticed you had silly things in common with. The freckle on both your hands. The way your lives mimicked each other two weeks apart..... born two weeks apart, parents got married two weeks apart, and so on for miles.
Seeing things like this in another person after him scares you. Sends you into moments of thought that no one can even hope to rescue you from. And not only does it scare you, but it limits what you can see in this new, wonderful person that has just popped up on the radar. Puts him into categories where he doesn't necessarily belong. Where you know you don't want to put him. This person, this brilliant shimmering star of a person has been thrust into a position that they may not even know exists. Left to fill shoes that they wouldn't even want to approach. The shoes of someone they don't respect, or value, or even care to know.
You leave him there to settle into the role that YOU have chosen for him, until you can see it. Until you're sitting on his bed and you realize he has really pretty hair. Until you start hearing lyrics in songs that make you wish he knew that those words touch you in a way that reminds you of him. Until you begin to pray that maybe if your hair looks really cute he might look up and see it too.
So as you struggle to find the next paralyzingly witty thing to say you let the thought settle a little deeper into your subconscious that this boy isn't like the ones before. He is ........... Damn it. If only you knew. Then all the questions would be answered. You wouldn't be left to not sleep and to have dreams of kisses that will never happen and to analyze every word and action and glance. Then you could be at peace knowing. WHATEVER it may be that you have yet to discover. The worst truth, the best truth, any truth at all.
You realize it is late, and that truth does not transcend through frantic typing. You accept this, and resolve to at least get under the covers. Promise yourself that he will not be your last thought as you try to fall asleep and don't forget to vow that you will not hate yourself if he is the first fading dream you have a sense of as you wake up. The boy has taken root up there. You know that. You must learn to live with it. There are, indeed, things that you cannot change.
November 9, 1998
I came to college and forgot how to work. Simple as that. I'm very good at sleeping, skipping class, playing on my computer until the wee hours of the morning, but when it comes to rolling my sleeves up, following something through to the finish, having initiative to do ANYTHING, it just doesn't exist. With the time I spend reasoning out why I shouldn't do said homework assingment, attend said class, etc. I could more than likely rescue a small African nation from impending poverty and famine.
So as of tonight, I'm throwing everything I have into regaining my focus. I think I'm figuring it out, and I pray that it isn't too late. Finally it has hit me square in the face that if I don't get my little coed ass in line, I'll never get to see any of these big crazy dreams I have floating around in my head come to fruition. And they have to, they just have to. The drive I have still exists it's just gotten buried beneath the pleasures and pitfalls of college life. Here I am with my shovel, and something that looks a little like a hatchet (okay, so it's my french binder, but I have to throw some lame imagery in somewhere).
Think Heather, you didn't get here because you loved every homework assignment you had in high school or every professor. You got here because you worked you ass off even when it came to things you hated. (Sorry Mrs. Carson, but the "how tall is the commons?" assignment was lame.) Now all I need to do is keep reminding myself of what it will feel like to be the one standing in the front of the classroom one day. to be the one who gets to see student's faces light up when the hear Millay for the first time.
