Continuing on from the last post… let’s visit a photo taken during my 14th year of life. Different year, same smile.
Oh, the love one feels at that tender age. Or it might’ve been just emotional residue from all of the Harlequin romance novels I was gobbling up that summer.
My mom and friend, V, headed to a conference at our local church where, ahem, HE was speaking. The infamous HE. HE ruled my universe and basketball highlights. sigh, oh.. HE.
Anyway, afterwards, HE sat down to write autographs for everyone. So I stood (im)patiently in line, ready to deliver the one-liner that would bring HIM down to HIS knees and propose.
But as I shuffled my way to the front of the line, and before I could get a word out edgewise, my mom decided to take matters in her own hands.
“Oh Jared! Why don’t you stand up with Carolyn and pretend you’re going to prom together!”
I. was. mortified.
(and happy)
She managed to break the awkward stare I leveled at HIM as HE waited for me to speak and create a joking atmosphere. Making fun of the fact that I really was pretending we were at prom, made it seem like I wasn’t in fact thinking that very thing. She was always cooler than me, that mom.
But then. Then! Years later in college…. I had been dragging around this darn photo for 7 years, pulling it out from under my bed when someone felt down in the dumps and needed to compare themselves to a lowlier being.
But one day, I noticed a path had been made through the 5 tons of dirty laundry on my bedroom floor. Who had been in here? What would they have possibly wanted?
Later that evening, in walks one of my roommates. A, who was dating someone on the college team that HE started to help manage. She hopped down the stairs and casually handed the photo over.
HE had signed it! And he even wrote my name on it!
Two thoughts ran through my mind:
1) I love you, A.
2) Did she mention that I look different than that 14 yr old in the photo? That I grew into my nose? That I got a cuter hair cut? That I… That I….
And right back into a 14 year old, I turned… With that same huge goofy grin.
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