My first crush was when I was five years old. His name was Randy; he lived out back of us in a grey tar-shingled house by the tracks. He was in my kindergarten class; I think I got a crush on him because of his collar-length hair and his smudgy face. I was a tomboy at this stage in my life despite my clumsiness; he suited just fine.
My mother dealt with this with stoic despair for the entire month of the crush. I don’t like to think of my family as classist, but I think there was an element of classism there. Mom went to visit his mom at one point; I got the impression from her afterward that This Was Not Going to Happen Again. I myself didn’t see the problem with Randy. Our house wasn’t nice either, although it was a lot bigger.
My mother needn’t have worried. My crush dwindled because Randy had figured out I was a girl and quit talking to me. For my part, I quit getting crushes on boys until fifth grade, from which point I made myself quite miserable with them until I was well, well past adolescence. And then one morning, I quit having crushes. I think I’m happy about that now.
Words Like Me 