Dreamlover come rescue me
Take me up take me down
Take me anywhere you want to baby now
I need you so desperately
Won't you please come around
'Cause I wanna share forever with you baby
In seventh grade, I got to join my fellow classmates to a week-long science camp. I was sadly split up from my friends since I did not raise my money to go fast enough and I ended up in a cabin with girls that were a bit more popular than myself. I spent months selling candy bars so that I could go kiss banana slugs and discover elephant seals. At first, they were a bit intimidating but as the days went on I got to know them a little more and I even opened up to the girls that I had a crush on a boy named Trevor. Trevor and I had several classes together, including band where he played the saxophone and I played the flute. I guess you could call him a friend of mine but as soon as I decided I liked him, I of course clammed up around him and stopped my normal interactions.
I had such an immature tendency to decide liking a boy and then just obsessing about it with my girlfriends and myself. For example, "Dreamlover" by Mariah Carey was one of my favorite songs as was any song that she released. But this one I particularly liked because I could sing "Dream Trevor" instead and imagine him taking my away. Letting the boys know was DEFINITELY out of the question. And I had no confidence being normal around boys - so I worried about what I said, how I looked,what if I embarrassed myself, what if I say something stupid, what if I annoy him, what if he knew I liked him, and on and on. Instead I'd rather talk for HOURS with my friends about everything that he said to me, how we looked and what I saw him do at school that day.
It's embarrassing really as I sit and write this out now. So backwards...so ridiculous... I think if I have a daughter like myself, I'm going to find out who her crushes are and force her to interact with him just so she doesn't act so retarded...you know arrange play dates (as if that's something you do for seventh graders), invite his family over for dinner, send my husband over to bond with his dad. Okay, now this is sounding more weird.
The last night of our science camp, we had a big "barn dance" which was a HUGE deal to all of us. Any opportunity to dance and cause crucial social opportunities was naturally a big deal. We were taught how to square dance and got to even hold hands with the boys as they made the rounds in the inner circle. A good thing...and a very bad thing depending on who you were forced to touch. I was walking on clouds as I walked back to my cabin afterwards because I got to dance with - and yes - hold Trevor's hands not once...but eeeh! twice! That was like more progress than I had made in the last couple of weeks and I felt like a superstar. I had even managed to have a few normal conversations and I was just so proud of myself.
That is until one of the girls in my cabin rocked my world just as I am laying down to have the most wonderful dreams. She had decided to take it upon herself to play matchmaker - or just ruin my life (or so I thought at the moment). During her turn of dancing with my Trevor, she had asked him if he liked me to which he replied "Who's Keri?" WHO'S KERI?! WHO'S FREAKING KERI?! Okay this is where the melodrama continues. I was hurt...I was devastated...my hopes of dating him were crushed...but mostly, I was embarrassed! Now I looked like THAT GIRL - you know the girl who reveals her crush - only to find out that he didn't even know who she was.
Did I think that Trevor didn't know me? No, I have no idea what happened. Maybe he knew more than one Keri (although since I never knew another Keri until I went away to college, I found this unlikely). Maybe he was embarrassed about being asked out loud...Maybe he was just immature and playing that whole "I'm a dumb teenage boy and need to look cool" act. All I knew was that I was ruined! I don't remember crying that night or anything that profound...but I do remember laying in my little stiff, wooden bunk while the other girls were falling asleep and looking at the dirty, cold, walls feeling so stupid. One of the other girls whispered "I'm sorry" as I was lying there - you know in that way that only girls who knew how horrible they would feel if something so atrocious happened to them.
The next day I kind of moped around as we prepared to leave - not even feeling better when I ran into my Trevor that morning on the way back from breakfast and exchanging a few random words. I told my close girlfriends first thing and one of our guy friends, Sean (who was in my eyes, just another nerd like me with his glasses, skinny body and parted blond, hair).
I got on the bus to go home and spent a good half hour replaying last night's dance in my mind. I was sitting with my friend, Beth, who was chattering to me about some random musician she was obsessed with at the time. But I couldn't listen - I had to figure out what went wrong. Halfway through the drive home, Sean asked Beth to switch places with him and he came and sat with me.
He joked about me still being upset over the Trevor thing, which made me laugh. And then he offered a few surprisingly nice things about me and how I should just get forget about him. The next hour was filled with comfortable banter and chatter between the two of us...And by the time we were home, I was happy again. just like in the beginning of Romeo & Juliet, I instantly became Romeo who was tragically fallen over Rosaline and then instantly falls obsessively for Juliet.
A week or so later after many other interactions and whispering hints from my girlfriend, Sean asked me to be his girlfriend. I was on top of the world again! Being Sean's girlfriend really consisted of talking on the phone occasionally, holding hands around school and exchanging fuzzy teddy bears for Valentine's Day. I think we "dated" for a total of maybe 3 weeks and then another brief stint later after he had made his rounds to my two best friends.
Sean was the first boy I kissed - no earth-shattering experience for either of us I'm sure - as we fish-lipped each other outside my science class after school due to taunting from my best friend Beth. Sean was the first boy to tell me that he loved me - just as awkward and wrong as it sounds coming from two pre-teens who really knew nothing about each other and spent a total of probably twenty hours together in the last two weeks. I used to have a classic picture of the two of us that my friend, Beth, had taken of us during lunch. We were holding hands and standing in front of a set of bleachers we used to hang out on. Both of us in our little nerdy glasses. Sean with his cute, little perfect parted hair and me in my hooded Tweety Bird shirt rocking the pony on top of head and crazy hair sprayed bangs.
Ahh the innocent days
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