Crushes

Let's see how ballsy I am.  It's 10:00 at night.  My kids are in bed, and I've had a couple glasses of wine.  It doesn't take much in my old age...  So I'm going to write my post tonight about some random stuff, and then tomorrow morning I'll read it and see if I have the courage to actually use it as my post.

I just finished catching up on the Office on Hulu.  I love the Office.  Mostly because it's super funny and I spent my professional career as a glorified secretary, but also because I have a huge crush on Jim Halpert (John Krasinski).  Today the hubby worked an evening shift, so it was just me and the boys.  They finished homework, had some dinner, played some Madden, goofed off for a while, and then it was time for bed.  I spent the evening on the phone with two of my sisters-in-law, then watching the Office on my computer, and now enjoying a lovely Shiraz while the kids drift off.  But watching the Office got me thinking about crushes and how they shape our lives.  Jim and Pam (on The Office) got together after having mutual office crushes on each other--one broke off an engagement to be with the other--and now they're married and are expecting their second child.  So it's safe to say their crushes changed their lives.  I think we're drawn to certain types of people, and that it only slightly evolves over our lives.

I have loved Johnny Depp since 21 Jump Street.  Seriously.  And now I love him in everything else he does.  I would pay the $8.00 to see a Pirates of the Caribbean movie even if it was just Captain Jack Sparrow standing there picking his cuticles for 2 1/2 hours.  And that's just a celebrity crush.  We all have those.  I still have those.  Hubby and I have our "lists".  You know, the celebrities we would excuse each other for if they wanted us for a night.  Because as we all know, I'm sure to have my shot with Alex O'Loughlin from Hawaii 5-0.

But we have our growing up crushes as well, and that's what I'm really talking about.  I had so many.  I remember the boys who made me so crazy I couldn't breathe right when they entered the room.  And it dates back to when I was very young.  (By the way--we should all thank GOD that I'm not raising girls.)  When I was in 2nd grade it was Mike Pendleton and Trent Castleberry.  I lived in Bozeman, Montana.  Mike had this cute white-blond hair.  I can actually remember what he looked like.  Trent Castleberry had dirty blond hair, and I remember when he broke his leg and let me sign his cast.  Be still my heart.  I wonder what ever happened to those two cuties.  But they are the earliest memories of my boy crazy.

In 3rd grade I lived in Denver.  There was a boy across the street named Chris Miller.  Funny how you remember first and last names so well from your childhood, the same way you remember if you had several people in your class with the same name.  I know my brother had several people in his grade with the same name, and we called them all by their first name and last initial, T--- A., T---B., and T---C.  It really worked, because there was an Anderson, a Brown, and a Castleberry.  Anyway.  Like I said, I've had a couple glasses of wine.  So Chris Miller.  He lived across the street from me.  He was also in the 3rd grade, but he was in a different class than me.  He used to chase me around my yard in an attempt to kiss me.  It would actually end up with him tackling me, and trying to kiss my cheek.  I would make a grand show of trying to get away from him, but in the end, I loved it, and I would totally let him kiss me, and sometimes turn my head so he could get me on the lips!  He was so cute.

Then I moved again, this time to Wyoming.  That is where I really got boy crazy.  I was entering the 4th grade, and had just read Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing by Judy Blume.  So of course I was an expert on all things boy.  Plus, I have an older brother.  I knew boys.  But this one had me.  He lived up the street from me.  His name was Scott Cortez.  People, I can't even tell you how many times I wrote his name with hearts all over it, or how many times I played that game where you draw the spiral and boxes and it predicts where you will live and how many children you will have.  But for four long years I thought I loved him.  And here's the extent of our relationship:

One time (had to be 5th grade) I saw him walking down the street with his baseball bat, obviously on his way to baseball practice.  I ran outside and walked down the street as if I was on my way to the convenience store down the way.  As I passed, I actually got up the courage to say, "hi." AND HE SAID "HI" BACK!  I still remember that day.  Then in the 6th grade it was the end of the school year and there was the once-a-month roller skating event at Roller City sponsored by the PTA.  We were all wearing our Junior High jackets because we would be entering junior high the following fall.  I had spread the word to all my girls that I wanted to couple skate with him, and he asked me to skate with him on the couple skate!  Folks, not only did we couple skate in our matching junior high jackets, but he held my hand with interlocking fingers.

The song was "Being With You" by Smokey Robinson.  You just don't forget something like that.

That year my Best Friend (friend #1 on the list I kept written down on the inside of my desk drawer) had a birthday party.  She invited three people:  me, Scott Cortez, and the boy she had a crush on at the time.  The party was at her grandma's house.  All I remember was that we tried to play strip spin the bottle, and I chickened out when I was losing and about to be indecently exposed, and then everybody else chickened out right along with me.  That was the end of my romance with Scott Cortez.

I then went on to Junior High, where it was a series of unrequited loves.  In the 9th grade I crushed on a guy that ended up being a good friend of mine.  He moved to a town three hours north of me before we entered high school.  We would have been a couple had he stayed in town, I'm convinced of it.  He's a friend of mine on Facebook now--if you're reading this, SG, let me know if I'm right!  Then my first crush in high school was the summer right before 10th grade.  I was entering the high school marching band.  Had a huge crush on a saxophone player from another junior high.  He was super sexy.  I stayed home while my parents and sister went camping just so I could work a concessions shift with him at a drum corps show.  We did end up dating, and we went to Homecoming together our sophomore year.  He ended up seeming a bit awkward, and now I know he's gay.  Just my luck.  I do wonder how he's doing now, though, and I still say he was one of my sexiest "boyfriends".

Shortly after that I started dating a friend.  A sweet boy who I had known since the 5th grade, who is the reason why I picked up a pair of drumsticks for the first time.  He was sort of my first love.  My first REAL boyfriend.  We went out for 8 months.  A lifetime when you're 15-16 years old.  He was quiet.  Sweet.  Romantic.  Everything a first boyfriend should be.  And if you're reading this, you know who you are.  Thank you for being so sweet.  I still can't hear "Running to Stand Still" from U2 without thinking of you and your VW pickup truck.

When I was a senior in high school, I was very lucky.  I was new to the school, so they didn't know me, and I didn't know them.  That is very intoxicating.  There was a boy who was a junior who seemed interested.  He was cute, but he was a bit too aggressive for me.  He was naughty and sexy, and my mom actually liked him, but there was no mystery to him.  MH you are still dear to me and I still wonder, but Oh, there was this cute guy who was in the band with me.  He was a wrestler.  Stocky and strong.  And absolutely stunned at the attention I gave him, which made him even cuter.  He'd never had a girlfriend before, but I was determined to be the first.  I thought he was SO cute, and I chased him openly.  Luckily he wasn't gay, and luckily he thought I was at least interesting, and we ended up dating for most of our senior year.  I still think he's one of the sweetest people I know, so my judgment must have been pretty solid.  Especially for a 17-year old girl.

College.  The "highschool sweetheart" and I had parted ways, very amicably.  We went to different schools, knew we would be experiencing different lives, so we separated.  So I was a new freshman at a Big 10 school.  In the drumline in the marching band.  What a crazy world!  But the boy I zeroed in on was another freshman, trying out for the drumline just like me.  He was short and funny and adorable.  I hung on him like white on rice until he noticed I was there, and then we dated for a year and a half.  And then he dumped me for another girl.  Ah, heartbreak.  That was my first real heartbreak.  We got back together a while later and realized it just wasn't meant to be.  I'm grateful we had that time to realize that.  Too many people I know never get that realization, that closure, and we really did.  When we see each other now, it's still weird.  There's that weird static in the air, that tension.  It's a shame, sort of.  But I guess when you give that much of your heart to someone, they keep a piece.  A piece you will never get back.

In September of 1989 I met my match.  I wouldn't find out, of course, until 1993.  But I met him in 1989.  He was older than me.  In another relationship.  In a different social circle.  And definitely out of my league.

My girlfriends and I all thought he was hot.  And in 1992 I started dating a good friend of his.  It wasn't a very serious relationship--we got together at a wedding, you know how weddings can be when you're in your 20's.  We dated for several months, but it wasn't too serious.  He was in a rock band.  And the drummer/singer in his band was hot.  The guy me and my girls thought was hot.  When things fizzled with us, I didn't consider going after this guy--again, out of my league, and they were very close friends.  But he called me, Homecoming 1993.  Ex-boyfriend (current friend of hot guy) was out of town and hot guy wanted to know if I wanted to go on a motorcycle ride and then to the Homecoming bonfire with him since the buddy was out of town??? (Innocently assuming I'd have nothing better to do)?

HELL YES!

And so that is the story of my crushes and my boy craziness.  It all ended well.  I somehow managed to land my Dream Man (and I still call him that in anniversary cards).  He is the guy (hot guy) who took me for a motorcycle ride, Homecoming 1993.  He is now the father of my children.

But all my crushes made me who I am.  They made me know how I wanted to be treated by a man.  How to treat a man.  Most importantly, that I should never settle.  That I am good enough.  That I am worthy.  And that these boys go through the same thing us girls go through.  Possibly worse.  Funny how when my hubby tells me stories of his early crushes he uses first and last names, just like I do.  And funny how his exes are all still important to him.  And how much I've come to love them, if not just the idea of them, as well.  They shaped him, trained him.  And they were lucky to have a piece of him.

So people, keep your exes in your hearts and minds.  Not just ex relationships, but ex crushes.  They are part of us.  They made us the full circle of who we are.  Real and fantasy, it's all good.