Young love. Ouch, right? Remember as an adolescent how important it was to find something to grasp onto? Zoe is approximately 5 years younger than I am, but pretty damn smart. Five years younger would make her 16 years old. Like Miley Cyrus, who needs to be drop-kicked in the face, in my opinion. However, we read about Miley Cyrus and her relationships with boys, like Nick Jonas, and she talks about being in love with him. Then we puke. I, personally, think to myself, "You barely have pubes and you're in love?" However, I have begun to reflect back to that age when my hormones and my pants replaced the job my brain was supposed to do and I realize that 16 is totally the age you start to fall for people legitimately. Now, I never said the chosen love interest is a good or smart choice, but still, it is definitely possible.
My first love was Charlie. Meredith was the only of of my friends to experience this time of my life. I was 14 years old, awkward and borderline unattractive at this point. My frizzy hair had pink dye in it. I wore spike bracelets and had braces. There was food most likely in those braces, as well. I still had some baby fat and huge boobs. Actually, awkward does not even begin to describe.
Charlie was a God in my eyes. He was 17 years old, a senior at my high school, and wanted by every freshman girl (like me) within marching band. Yeah, I know, it just keeps getting better. He was tan, tall, dark eyes, dirty brown hair, Greek-God's body, and Dartmouth-accepted. Everything radiated gold when near him. His smile was straight and white when he talked to me. On the rare occasion that he did talk to me, it was like music. i would try to talk back but I could not bring words to my tongue for I would constantly be distracted by his dimples.
On top, of being close to perfect, he was a kind soul and would probably do anything for the people he cared about. I desperately wanted to be one of those people. If he was absent one day and I was wearing a cute outfit, I would wear it again the next day. Psycho or silly? Perhaps both?
Charlie was perhaps the only Love-at-first-sight I have ever experienced. I, generally, do not believe in fables of Romeo and Juliet. I wish I did. However, rationality slaps me in the face every time my mind wanders towards such things, but I was 14-years old, and I was a pretty shade of green back then. The moment I saw him, I was magnetized and drawn. Moth, meet Flame, you will never leave Flame alone now. It was like I couldn't NOT talk to him. Every chance I got to speak (or stutter) to him, I would. I would bring a bag of starbursts to school at least three times a week just to offer some to him. I would buy him cookies at lunch. Sit close by him outside during lunch period. Put my backpack right next to his in band so that when he went to get it after band was over, he may or may not accidently touch mine. When I was cold at the football games we had to march and play at, I would steal his hat and/or jacket. My stomach never felt butterflies. It was closer to feeling pterodactyls and WWII aeroplanes. I would give anything to feel that way again about anybody. It was an unexplainable feeling that I have not felt about anybody else to this day.
Charlie and I grew to be more than acquaintances over the first few weeks of school. The Homecoming dance was a monumental day that started the rest of my love life. I bought the most hideous outfit for such an event. Anyone will vouch for how heinous it was. I wanted so bad to be different from my peers. This outfit was disgusting. A creme-colored lace top with flowy, angel sleeves and a silk green skirt. Doesn't sound that bad right? It hugged my body all wrong. Plus, I forgot to buy shoes for it, so I resorted to a pair of blue, faux-denim, platforms from Payless. I had also straightened my hair and put half of it back and the hairs above my ears were straight but frizzed outward. I looked like nothing you would want to dance with at Homecoming.
I get to my Homecoming dance with my friend Melissa and we put our coats in the health room by the gym where the dance was being held. I auto-spot Charlie in a white, button-down and black pants. DREAMY. He came over to me, which today I still wonder what attracted him to my heinousness, and asked me if I wanted to dance with him. Did I want to dance with him? My whole body felt as if my bones were going to melt into pudding. I managed to say yes and hugged him for some retarded reason and my friend Mike snapped a picture of us.
I still have this picture, safe inside a box of treasures.
I danced with my friends for about an hour on the dance floor, scanning the gymnasium for my beloved. My fucking retarded shoes I chose to wear were now digging into my ankles from sole up. I had to sit down. When my flat ass hit the bleacher, I see a dark profile, of what seemed to be Charlie, offer me a hand to dance. Suddenly, my feet lacked any sort of pain as I got up and spun around the floor with Prince Charming. Of course, "Hot in Herr," is not the first choice of song to dance with royalty to, but it did the job. Our bodies touched, and it was like the pterodactyls in my stomach morphed like Pokemon into their next phase. My naughty bits were on fire, and his were not at 6 o'clock either. I wonder to this day, how I did such a thing and at the same time looked like I fell in a retard's closet.
The song whizzed by and changed to a slower song. He took my right hand into his left and laced it ever-so gently as he slid his right hand to my waste and my left somehow ended up around his neck. Something was stirring inside of me, but I could not decode this feeling . I had never been this close to someone I ever had feelings for. Probably because I had never had real feelings like this toward anybody, being such a youngin. I could not help but stare into his chocolate eyes the entire time. The streamers around the gym turned into silk ribbons in the wind and the people around me disappeared. Surealism does not even come close to that experience. All of this was newborn and brand-spankin'-new. When the song finished, he leaned toward me and I thought he meant to kiss my cheek, but he was going for my lips. Awkwardly, he hit the right corner of my mouth and kissed it for a good 6 seconds. I thought I was inside a chamber of cold fire. He unlaced his fingers and walked away to go get a drink, looking back at me a couple times. I was frozen inside this fire. My first kiss was barely a legitimate kiss on the lips, but to this day, I have never felt anything like that.
Later on that month, I heard on good authority that Charlie was drunk at this Homecoming dance, where he kissed me. I did not know whether to be mad or confused. Nothing had changed within our friendship. Perhaps he did not remember he kissed me. Freshman year was almost 8 years ago for me and that kiss is probably my most vivid and possibly my favorite memory from high school. He has no idea, to this day, what I felt for him. He definitely assumed I had a crush on him, little did he know he was the unrequited love of my life. Painful and wonderful it was indeed.
When he graduated high school in 2003, I gave him a little bear with a "Congrats" on it. Hopeless romantic. I know. Back then I was, at least. If there was anybody I ever wanted to really be with, it was Charlie.
After he graduated, for the next 7 years, I would rarely see him. Maybe on Thanksgiving at the big football game. He would give me a hug and ash from the cold fire would be swished around. Even when I was with my boyfriend at the time, the embers still got kicked up.
The last time I saw him was at the Thanksgiving game in 2008. He was with his family and he gave me a hug. I could feel my smile through my ears.
So when I mention young love and adolescence, I would just gladly like to say, I have been there, done that. One can certainly feel the sting of love at such a young age. I think being so naive makes the cold fire that much more potent. I am glad to have felt it at least once in my life. If I never feel it again, I will be okay with that.
I love Zoe's wisdom at such a young age. However, I wonder if she has ever felt the frozen fire. I was so much greener at that age than she is, so it makes me wonder if she would ever know what I was talking about. That fire changed me. To know I may never find it again does not mean I will give up on it. I hope Zoe stays green for a while longer until she needs to use her head. That feeling was ancient and almost primal and the older and wiser we get, the duller the icy flames get.
I raise my wine glass to young love and the frost-bitten burns I have from it.
Cheers, mother fucker!
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