May 31, 1998
9:27AM
I woke up this morning to music, of a sort. I followed the sound to see where it was coming from, and it wasn't hard to find the source: Mom was in the dining room, tapping each of her milk glass pieces with her nail to make it ring out, trying to hear the varying tones. I startled her, because I'd come in the room quietly and she had her back to me, but when she got over that, she held out a photograph she'd found in a little metal mailbox that was in the sideboard cupboard along with her glassware.
The mailbox held pictures that had made me happy when I was younger: me dressed up as a flower girl at one of my sisters' weddings (I was only about six and quite cute back then), some of my friends from my birthdays, snapshots of me at my seventh birthday, an old photo (probably older than me) of my brother playing drums in his band when he was in his teens, one of my uncle, and so on. The one Mom held was of Jon, my second childhood sweetheart.
I reminisced not long ago about my first childhood sweetheart, Todd, in Down Memory Lane (and back), but I don't think I've ever mentioned the other young man who was in my life. Jon was nine and I was thirteen, and he and his mom lived in the same apartment complex I did.
We spent a lot of time together, playing with Legos, playing video games, I even remember watching Jeopardy together with him, though at that age, neither of us was very good at it.
Jon was sweet on me, and I adored him, but though he promised that he was going to marry me when we grew up, I never thought it would work out (I didn't tell him that though). After all, he was four years younger than me. *chuckle* Little did I know... But anyway, Jon and I had some fun times together. I remember Mom took him and I to the theater to see Labyrinth, the fantasy movie with David Bowie, and that was our first 'date'. I spent a lot of time over at his apartment, and he spent a lot of time over at mine.
After a couple years, though, he and his mom moved to one of the little rental houses a little way down the same block. I remember going over for his birthday, perhaps his eleventh, but after that, I really didn't see him much and we lost touch.
A few years later, after Mom and I had moved a couple more blocks away due to a disagreement with our landlord at the old place, I saw Jon, riding his bike down from the downtown area, as I was walking home from school. He stopped just long enough to say hi and he was off again, but he was so cute with those big blue eyes and blonde hair of his, I wished that I had kept better track of him.
There was a marriage that would have had a few things to work out: Jon was Jewish, and I was not. But I think that if we'd given it a chance, it just might have worked. I regret not keeping in touch with him, but I'm glad that I had the chance to know him. He's one of the few boys who kept me convinced that not all guys out there were jerks who only made fun of me and made me feel bad about myself. He was a real sweetheart, in more ways than one.
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