To All the Boys I've Loved Before

This week’s GBE topic, thanks to Claudia, is First Love. This one conjures images of prom nights and starry-eyed young romance; sweet, sweet puppy love. Or as I tend to think of it, hormones gone wild. ;O)

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I was never one of those little girls who thought boys were icky; no cootie-shots needed for me if a boy brushed my arm as he passed my desk. No, I was far more likely to write his name all over pink and purple sheets of notebook paper, using big, puffy hearts to dot the i’s. Then I’d try out my first name with his last name, using my fanciest, swirliest penmanship.

Early on—maybe first or second grade—it was sweet Dougie Brown who had my heart. Bright red hair and more freckles than I could count, Dougie was a charmer. He was kind and funny and had a grin that stretched wide across his face. I was utterly smitten. Word Nerd Brown. Yeah, it had a nice ring to it. ;O)

By third grade, Brian Williams caught my eye. Where Dougie had been a sweet boy, Brian was a manly man. Dougie was slight of build, but Brian had a wide, sturdy look about him, and he always seemed to be just a little bit sweaty, which absolutely fascinated me. I can picture him still, seated next to me in Mrs. Mazur’s class, beads of dewy perspiration on his suntanned nose. Again, smitten. Word Nerd Williams? Not bad.

Right around the time that my hormones started brewing wildly, I traded my adoration of sweet boys for an appreciation of the ones with a bit of adolescent edginess. What girl doesn’t love a bad boy, at least once in her life?

In retrospect, the first ‘bad boy’ to get me all aflutter wasn’t really all that bad, but compared to my goodie-two-shoes self, he was practically prison material. Steve Galasso was handsome in that wonderfully Italian way that appeals to me still. Thick dark hair with just a bit of curl to it, full eyebrows that frame gorgeous brown eyes. Smitten doesn’t begin to describe how I felt about that boy.

Like all bad boys, Steve wasn’t all that nice to me—at least not consistently. He’d tease and flirt, then back away and act like I was something he couldn’t wipe off of his shoe. I adored him. He drove me crazy.

For my thirteenth birthday, my parents allowed me to take five guests to an indoor amusement park called Old Chicago. Being thirteen, I chose my two best friends and the three boys that we liked. My brother and his wife were to drive us, but when we stopped by Steve’s house to pick him up, his mother told me that he wasn’t home—and she didn’t seem to know anything about the day trip that had been planned for weeks. She said that he was over at the park, ice-skating.

A glutton for humiliation, I guess, I made my brother drive to the park, where my ‘date’ was chasing after a puck with a stick. I got out of the car and talked to him, only to find out that he had no intention of riding the Ferris wheel with me that day. Word Nerd Galasso? Absolutely not.

High school brought new boys, nice ones and not-so-nice ones. The ones I liked the most were the ones who liked me the least. I attracted nice boys, but I kinda had a thing for the ones who had the glint of the devil in their smile. My mother warned me off of them, but what did she know?

I had a few teacher crushes, of course. That I learned anything in sophomore geography is a miracle, because I spent most of my class time focused on either the eyes or the hiney of our young, George Clooneyish instructor. Maybe that’s why my spatial intelligence is still a little below par. Blame it on the hot math teacher. Word Nerd I-Can’t-Remember-His-Name-Just-His-Cute-Fanny? Nah, too long of a signature.

Another teacher held more appeal than just good looks, though he was quite handsome. Picture Jason Stratham, now sit him up on the desk at the front of the classroom—not in his chair, but on the desk itself—he’s casual yet completely in charge, and is absolutely passionate about the subject matter. Now imagine that you are a fifteen-year-old girl. He looks pretty good, right?

I was in love with his mind—a first for me, at that tender age. When he spoke, I listened. And I learned. I grew a great deal under his tutelage, both academically and as a person. I was smitten—hugely smitten—and even years later, the thought of him makes me smile. Word Nerd Moonier? Nope, he was happily married with a couple of kids, and had the moral fortitude not to entertain silly young girls with designs on him.

When I was a junior in high school, not yet seventeen, my mom died. I quickly went from being an obedient goody-two-shoes to a reckless wild-child, and a string of boys not worth remembering claimed most of my free time. Word Nerd JerkGuy? Um, no.

Then there was the guy that all of my friends thought I would marry. Thought I should marry. The first serious guy. He was nice looking, stable, educated, and came from a good bit of money. If I was a checklist sort of girl, he’d have scored very well. The thing was, I didn’t love him. I thought I did—for about a minute and a half—but it was more lust than love, and that’s not the stuff that will carry you through lost jobs and kids with chicken pox and flooded basements and old-age arthritis. For that stuff, you need love, the real stuff. Word Nerd FriendsChoiceGuy? Uh-uh.

The first time I was in love—genuine love—was with my husband. I knew almost immediately and he did too, but had either of us kept checklists, it would have never happened. My dad did not approve, and though his dad loved me immediately, his mom was less enamored. My friends thought that I had lost my everlovin’ mind and they weren’t shy about telling me so. We were young and broke and sorely undereducated. Together, we were destined to struggle financially.

But we had magic. And we were smart enough to grab it up and build our lives on it. In no time at all, I stood and signed the marriage certificate: Word Nerd Grace. I used my fanciest, swirliest penmanship.

And it was just right.




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