BRB, talking to my crush on AOL
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Every day after school in 4th grade, I would throw my backpack on the ground when I got through the front door and race upstairs to the family computer to talk to David Zechman on AOL. @ccsoccer032 was my screen name; my older brother and sister helped me create it the weekend my parents said I was allowed to go on AOL. David and I had this unspoken commitment to meeting there (AOL chatroom) around 3:45pm each afternoon, even though we would barely say hello to each other at school and acted like it was a coincidence we were both online at the same time. I now wonder how we exchanged AOL screen names if we barely spoke to each other. There were days where we'd say, “Sorry, my mom made me do my homework first” or “Sorry, I had to go to my sister’s soccer game today.”
My family had a pink Microsoft computer with a mouse that was worn down and a little sticky from eating goldfish and oreos in between clicks. The door to the computer room had pen markings on the frames - logging our height, the date and our age. My brother, sister and I would have to take turns who got to play Backyard Soccer on Sundays or who got to check their away messages on AOL after dinner. But, lucky for me, my brother and sister were strapped to their homework these afternoons where I got to go on AOL - sometimes until dinner time.
One afternoon he asked me to be his girlfriend on AOL. I said “okay.” I felt this strange, confusing glee. I wrote in my diary, “I am NOT telling mom or dad or Alexa or Tyler…aren’t we too young to be boyfriend and girlfriend?” Doing something that I felt like I shouldn’t do yet made me feel excited and confused and guilty all at the same time. When I broke up with him, my friend Laura did it for me. She swam over to him during P.E. class and told him in front of his friend George. She swam back over to me, shouting from afar, “He says he doesn’t care!!”
Falling in love in elementary school feels like a huge deal at the time. It’s what pulls you out the door in the morning - or the reason you don’t want to go to school. You begin hearing certain lyrics on the radio and getting to put your own face to those words as you stare out the window on your way to school. During this time, you don’t really know how this love thing works - but you get clues from people and movies and songs around you; you’re guided by this invisible force that you aren’t quite sure about. You begin to learn what embarrassment feels like in your body and what “self-conscious” means.
Even though having a crush feels agonizing (“do they like me back?!”), oftentimes we later look back at the time as an electric experience. A few weeks ago I wrote about the intoxicating rush of a crush and how we don’t have to limit having a crush to romantic settings.
I’m curious about exploring using the uncomfortable experience of a crush as a way of learning how to listen to ourselves. It’s all practice. Maybe we get consumed and obsessed - and then they turn out different than we expect them to be IRL, and we have to break up with them during gym class. But with each pursuit, we learn something new about ourselves.
Reflecting on crushes is also a reminder that special things don’t always feel good in the moment. And lastly: we don’t always have to act on having a crush. Sometimes it’s best for a crush to stay a crush.
Today, I’m going to explore having a crush on my life.
TTYL & LYLAS!
~ Lucinda
