You know how you look through old pictures of yourself and suddenly a memory is sparked that you had suppressed deep in the annals of your psyche? A memory so penetrating it is actually quite painful because of the lack of emotional lubrication needed to make it glide in smoothly. A remembrance that you are not proud of, so leaving it forgotten was actually better for your self-esteem.
But then you are faced with your former self and are forced to contemplate what kind of person would do such a thing… and the answer is unequivocally you. You are that person that would do that kind of thing. Yeah, so I had one of those moments yesterday and it totally made me question what kind of demented person I was as a 10 year old.
When I was in the 4th grade one of my closest friends Ashley moved to Spain in the middle of the year. Now, it is one thing to leave before the summer, because the summer months make everyone forgettable, but it is another thing to leave with a whole half a year of school left! So needless to say I missed Ashley and would look nostalgically at her empty desk.
Ashley was my first friend that I made at school, and we had a lot in common. Like we both liked to jump rope and had a real passion for Fruit Rollups. Life without her was bleak, so my mom suggested I go visit her in Spain for my spring break.
Now I am not sure what the hell my parents were thinking when they put me on a plane to Europe by myself, but that was exactly what they did.
Even though I was on vacation, Ashley was not, so I had to go to school with her. Let me just say that there is nothing quite as lame as going to school on your vacation, but I also wanted to spend as much time with Ashley as I could.
There was this boy who went to Ashley’s school who decided that he had a crush on me. There was nothing wrong with this boy. He was perfectly nice I am sure. (Well we actually didn’t speak the same language so I don’t really know if he was – but he seemed okay). Yet I really didn’t like boys, and felt humiliated by his love. There was something embarrassing about the attention as the whole class learned of Jose’s adoration. It was as if I was suddenly on display, and a willing participant of his affection. Like I was asking for it. When really I just wanted to whisper to Ashley about whether or not we had Nutella sandwiches for lunch.
The more Jose liked me, the more the other students would make a big deal out of it, and the more I felt like hiding. He at one point wrote me a love letter and even holding it in my hand felt demoralizing. I felt oppressed by the little hearts that he drew for me. Yeah perhaps it is a compliment when someone likes you, but I also didn’t want to feel this pressure that I had to like him in return. I needed this to end.
So I did what my ten-year old mind could think of to deflect his fondness for me. You see… right before I left for Spain I had a wart on my hand, and the doctor put some liquid nitrogen on it to freeze it off. But basically this procedure created a swollen imploded wart that was taking its sweet time to fall off. As such, for the majority of my trip, I had an infested growth on my hand that was hanging on by a warty fiber. But then, it fell off. So I took said wart, put it in an envelope, and gave it to Jose.
