Awkward First Love
Автор: Black Dating Service
Outside my family’s home on Elwood Way, there was a mailbox. There was absolutely nothing special about this mailbox. It was made of tin, slightly rusted, and more than a little wobbly. The numbers of our address were clumsily attached to its side. It looked like every other mailbox on the street.
I was ten years old. I only got mail to that mailbox once every year in the form of a birthday card from my grandparents. Every other day I would watch Mom or Dad carry in a big stack of mail and sort through it, always hoping they’d, just one time, stop in the middle of their routine, look up, and enthusiastically say, “one for you, Danny!” It never happened.
Of course, now that I’m an adult, I understand why they never had enthusiastic smiles at all. Mail sucks. Almost everything that comes is either a piece of paper saying “PAY ME!” or an advertisement saying “GIVE US YOUR MONEY!” But as a kid, I thought that just about every envelope they were opening was as wondrous as a birthday card, and I really wanted in on some of it.
Then one day, Kari, a little sandy blonde girl who lived down the street, stuck something in that mailbox. For me. It was a plain white envelope, and across the top it just said, “To Danny.”
Mom and Dad never saw that envelope. They never had the chance. In the middle of the day, my older sister came bounding into my room and interrupted me while I worked on a jigsaw puzzle. I was really good at jigsaw puzzles. Like really, really good at them. I could do a 1,000-piece puzzle before I was even old enough to start getting complaints about B.O. But seriously, this isn’t about me. Or my amazing jigsaw puzzle skills. Or the fact that I could somehow do puzzles that were practically solid colors. Stop thinking how awesome I am for that. This is about Kari, and the envelope she left in my mailbox.
Anyway, Tomi Ann came bounding into my bedroom. She had a huge smile smeared across her face. That wasn’t like Tomi Ann. Not when it came to her and me. We were mortal enemies more often than not, and our entire co-existence as children could be summed up in two words: eternal tattling. Yet there she was, standing above me, glowing. “Go check the mailbox! There’s something in there for you!” she screeched.
I’m pretty sure I was at the mailbox before she finished her sentence.
I yanked the front open, stuffed my hand inside, and pulled out the white envelope.
Suddenly that mailbox wasn’t just some rusty old tin clunker. It was my deliverer from all things mundane and ordinary.
To Danny
My heart doubled its pace. Next to the words were two little colorful hearts. What was this? Who would send me this? My sister was standing over me, eagerly waiting for me to tear into it. “Open it!” she demanded. I never paused to wonder why she was taking so much interest in it.
I ripped open the flap, and pulled out a bright yellow sheet of paper.
“Dear Danny, I like you a lot. Tomorrow you will get a present from me.”
There was no signature. No identifying marks of any kind. It was a love note from a Jane Doe.
Tomi Ann began grilling me to see if I had any idea who might have sent it. I had no clue. I had no friends who were girls. I had no crushes on any girls. I had no memory of even talking to a girl. Ever.
But I fell in love with the sender of that letter immediately. It could have been from an eighty-year-old cat lady and I would have devoted my life and heart to her in that moment. I had never experienced butterflies or a rush of excitement the way I did right then, and that night I didn’t get much sleep as I waited for my surprise the next day. What would it be? Money? Some Garbage Pail Kid trading cards? My own Atari? A king-sized Kit Kat bar?
The next afternoon, Tomi Ann snuck Kari through my house and in to my mother where Kari asked if she could be allowed into my bedroom to put something on my bed. Mom told her sure, go ahead. And according to Kari, she insisted, “you can like him, but nothing more.”
Geez Mom, way to blow my first chance at a hot make-out.
As if.
I was ten. I was still a solid year away from puberty. To me, “something more” involved making weird hand gestures taught to me by my dad, remember?
And it didn’t matter, I was already in love before I even walked in and saw the next sheet of paper laying across my pillow. Taped to the paper was a Now & Later candy. Next to the word Now it said, “I’ll love you.” Next to the word Later, it said, “I’ll marry you.”
I had finally found my forever sweetheart. I would marry this woman. But who it was I still didn’t know. There was no name attached to it. Not even a hint to help me solve the riddle.
I turned around to see my older sister peeking around the corner into my room. I looked at her with wide eyes and she misread that as an invitation to come in. “It’s from Kari!” she screamed and snorted all at once in her excitement. “She’s in love with you!” Kari was one of Tomi Ann’s best friends.
We made our way outside, sat down on the porch together, and made a plan for how we were going to make this union come about. Sitting next to my sister that day is one of my best childhood memories. It was one of the few times we found ourselves on the same team instead of at each other’s throats. She was genuinely excited for me and determined to have a hand in something happy coming to me.
And boy, did the happy times come…
The next two weeks were spent back and forth between Kari’s house and mine. We built things in the sandbox. We made cookies together. We jumped on her trampoline at least daily. We hunted for snakes together. We were in love.
But looking back at it, the fun and happy memories are very dim for me while two other memories have always loomed largely in my mind.
No matter how much fun we were having, we said almost nothing to each other. As in, ever. I bet most days, less than thirty words were exchanged between the two of us.
“Wanna look for snakes?”
“Sure.”
Then we’d look for snakes. In silence.
“Wanna make cookies?”
“Sure.”
Then we’d make cookies. In silence except to discuss measurements or ingredients.
“Wanna go behind The Chicken Lady’s house and smoke pot?”
“Sure.”
Okay, that last one didn’t happen, but if it did, we would have done that in silence as well. I mean, we really liked each other, but we had no idea how to actually talk to each other. And yes, there really was a woman around the corner who we all called The Chicken Lady. She would come out onto her porch when we passed by for school, and she’d just start bocking loud chicken sounds at us. She was terrifying.
And as strange as the no-talking memory has always been for me, there has been a much stranger one. I had a giant wart on the palm of my left hand.
I hated that wart. I loathed that wart. And I did everything in my power to hide that wart from my first love. And that’s probably why I even remember so much of what we did together at all. I remember jumping on the trampoline because I remember she wanted to hold hands while we did it, and I had to always make sure she held my right hand so that she wouldn’t see it. I remember making cookies because I remember purposefully grabbing measuring cups and tablespoons with my right hand while my left hand stayed shoved in my pocket. I remember searching for snakes because I remember holding the snakes in such a way that she would see only the snake and not the grotesque disfigurement on my body.
I just knew that my wart would be the end of our love affair. I didn’t think she would ever be able to look past it once she knew it existed. I thought she would be disgusted by it, and I didn’t want this girl I loved to disappear. Not over a wart.
Two weeks after our relationship started, it ended. I don’t know why. I think one of us moved. Or we just forgot that we were in love. Who knows.
What I do know is that I’ve thought about that wart over the years. I’ve seen how that dynamic has shown up in my other relationships. I’ve seen it show up so often in the relationships of others. We meet someone, we fall for them, and we’re so scared of losing them that we actively hide our warts.
Okay, that just sounds gross. When grown-ups have warts, they’re usually on their no-no bits, but you get what I’m saying.
We don’t show others our flaws. We hide those parts of us that we think the other person will never accept. We do everything we can to appear as perfect as we can for as long as we can.
But that’s not love.
What I had with Kari wasn’t actually love at all. It was excitement mixed with friendship. I know, because now I know what love actually is. Now that I’m older and I’ve had lots and lots of relationships (I’m still really good at jigsaw puzzles, by the way), I know that love is never real unless its foundation is a real one. Love that is founded on some weird and fake guise of perfection will always fail.
Which is why I now show my “warts” as quickly as possible to the people who come into my life. Some people can’t handle my warts. And that’s okay, too. I’d rather hold hands with someone and think about the fun we’re having than hold hands with them while constantly fearing what will happen if they learn the truth that is me.
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