Things I Think About

First Love

I loved her from the moment I met her, which was first grade, at 7 years old. She had long, slightly wavy, dirty blonde hair. Her eyes a bright green, pale skin, and freckles over her cheeks. We'll call her J.

I will always remember the way she looked focused on a book. I'll always remember giggling with her because the book had the bad words "damn" and "hell" in them. At 7 she was reading Harry Potter, which I wasn't allowed to read because it was "witchcraft" but she would always tell me what was happening.

The newest shenanigans, Harry and crew got into, how much she looked up to Hermione, how badly she wanted to be like her, even though she was already so similar.

Being raised Christian, growing up in a small town, in a republican state is hard when the first person you love is another girl. I'd only loved her for a year when I was told it was wrong.

My mother and I were talking about Republicans and Democrats since there was an election that year and I didn't understand. I asked her what each of them believed and what I would be. She told me it depended on how I felt about different things.

"Do you think it's okay for boys to marry boys or girls to marry girls?"

I'll never forget feeling warm and fuzzy thinking about J. "Well if they really love each other, I think that should be okay" I even remember the words.

"Well the church thinks it's bad" warm and fuzzy feelings disappearing with the words she spoke. My blood ran cold, I felt sick, I felt wrong.

"Oh, then, no.." the first instance of homophobia I would find. The first time I'd realized that having a crush on J was different than having a crush on the boys at school.

I know understood why people always asked "do you have a boyfriend? Do you have a crush on a boy? Do you think he's cute?" No one asked if I had a girlfriend or a crush on a girl because I wasn't supposed to. That was wrong. I was wrong. That's what the church thinks.

So I bottled up my feelings. I pushed them away, locked them up, so no one would know. I wasn't wrong. I was normal, I was fine. And until my feelings for J went away and I could just be her normal friend, I could just pretend I didn't have a crush.

I strived for perfection for her. To others we were just best friends. J just thinks we're best friends. One of her other friends, was an absolute bitch, we'll call her Bossy.

I always stood up for anyone that needed me to but I especially did for J. Her friend was controlling, telling J she couldn't eat lunch with me, or play with me at recess. That J was her friend. J tried to compromise by saying she could hangout with us but she never wanted to.

Once when Bossy demanded J come eat lunch with her I finally snapped. I told Bossy she needed to shut up because J could make her own decisions. She could go sit with bossy if she wanted or she could stay with me and our other 3 friends.

J decided to stay with us. A year later I tried to break Bossy's nose with a four square ball. Not completely on purpose, but definitely not on accident.

I remember when The Hunger Games came out, to this day I still haven't read them. Any book J was interested I avoided reading. Not because I didn't want to read the books she liked, or because we didn't like the same books, but because if I didn't read them J would tell me why they were so good, why she liked them, what was happening, what she wanted to happen, etc.

My favorite way to read books was always listening to J tell me the best parts. Never reading them meant I didn't care if she "spoiled" the ending or big events.

When she first started reading The Hunger Games she told me I reminded her of Rue. She even called me Rue sometimes. J became upset in class one day and I asked her what was wrong.