Wishes and Kisses || COMPLETE

The Maroon Crayon Part I

It was my first day of kindergarten. Little five year old me was running around the house in my new overalls and yellow shirt that said 'first day of school', along with my backpack that had a cartoon picture of a police car, a firetruck, and an ambulance. I zipped up and down the stairs and through the halls pretending to make my favorite toy--my firetruck toy--fly.

"Nickie!" My mom called to me. "Why are you running?" She asked.

"Because I'm happy!" I said.

"You excited for your first day?"

"Yeah. I'm gonna get a friend!"

My mother blushed. In my early years I wanted nothing more than to have a friend, and it was something I would talk about constantly, and my mom knew this. I never really had a friend my age. I was an only child, and my parents were both the youngest in their family and married late so all my cousins were at least ten years older than me. My parents didn't have any friends with kids my age either. On top of that, my mother was pretty protective of me and didn't let me hang out with the neighborhood kids because their parents seemed sketchy to her. Kids I met at the grocery store were often put off by how enthusiastic I was to meet them too. The only friends I had were cartoon pals on TV, but I couldn't interact with them. Not really. It was always nice to pretend I could though. But even they had friends, and always taught the value of being nice, and showing that sharing was caring and all that. As hyper of a child as I was, I was actually very perceptive of the messages and lessons they taught in kids shows at a young age, and wanted to apply them in real life once I had someone I could call a friend.

My father came downstairs with his disposable camera. "Hey Nickie, are you ready for your first day of school?"

"Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!" I jumped up and down in anticipation. "I'm gonna make a friend!" My parents took countless pictures of me. Pictures of me jumping, pictures of me in my Superman pose, pictures of me with my favorite toy truck, and most importantly, pictures of the three of us being together as a family.