My first kiss and my first love

Day three of the thirty day writing challenge...

I think my first kiss was when I was in the fourth grade. I don't remember the boy's name. I think it happened in the back seat of a car, but I don't remember for sure. Obviously very memorable. :)

My first love - that's a toughie. I've had several crushes; none of them were interested in me. There was Walt in 8th grade. I was devastated when he didn't invite me to the eighth grade dance. Before Walt, there was Eric, who was my pseudo date for my Bat Mitzvah weekend. There is a chance my mother paid him to act like my boyfriend, but she denies it. I know at least one time she paid a boy to dance with me at some event. It was a real self-esteem boost when the boy bragged to me about it.

In undergrad I was overcome with attraction for a beautiful boy who used a manual wheelchair. I could barely breathe when he was around. And in grad school I was terribly smitten with a boy named Kevin. He lived two doors from me on our co-ed floor in the dorm, and I did everything I could to spend time with him.

But was I really in love with any of these boys? And was I love with William, the guy I dated through part of high school and the early chunk of college? We were very different. He was country, and I was rock and roll. He came from a very conservative family of nine children. I was at his house exactly once in all the years that we dated. We were together during the most difficult of my life - two major surgeries, and I spent most of my high school existence on homebound and half-day programs. We didn't date like normal kids. Our "dates" consisted of hanging out at my house. I think we went to the ice cream parlor exactly once. We did go to the our junior and senior proms, but I was sick for both, and we didn't stay long at either one.

William was very sweet to me, and I often took out my frustrations of life on him. Our relationship fell apart when he went into the Navy. I cared for him very much; I'm not sure I can say that I was in love with him. He gave me a promise ring and even proposed once over the phone, but I didn't accept. He deserved better than the person that I was back then.

librarianintx