It was my 12th birthday and Laura Rush gave me a book as a gift. Thoughtful, sure. Strange, very. It was a book about the perils of puberty. It had a teen boy draped over a yield sign on the cover. I think her mom picked it out for her. Whatever.
One day I was flipping through it and stumbled on the lyrics to Janis Ian's At Seventeen in a chapter about self-esteem. I had never heard the song before but the lyrics made me stop. It was like she wrote the song about me. For me. In 1975. She was a prescient woman.
At my first dance I asked every boy I knew to dance with me. And they all said no. The same happened the next year. I figured it out and stopped asking. Boys never asked me out, men never hit on me. I wasn't asked to the prom and I made the moves on Mike.
Wahwahwah. This brings me to a point. When the attractive office supply delivery guy (who I once caught shamelessly checking out my ass when I was bent over, then made eye contact with me and asked me how I'm doing, all without being creepy) says hello to me today and asks me how my yoga is going because the last time he was here he remembered me mentioning how I'm going to get buff, I'm having a GREAT day. Every time this fellow comes in he makes eye contact with me, flashes a brilliant smile and asks me how I'm doing. I smile back at him and engage him in conversation. Yes, I'm flirting with the delivery guy. Mike knows it and he doesn't mind. I come home with a kick in my step and some fresh self-confidence. Besides, I'm not going to do anything about it.
Before you give me shit, Mike does an excellent job making me feel attractive. HOWEVER, if you're going to tell me that if someone you find attractive reciprocates and you don't enjoy it even a little, you're lying. It means you've still got it. And in my case, it means I've finally gotten something.
2 comments:
sweetheart, you've had it all along. the difference is, now you believe it :). high school boys are stupid anyways...
Having lived through those middle school years with you, I felt your pain; but I also knew those situations were contrived, the boys were scared $#!+-less, and the absolute best was always yet to come. The proof lives in Albany.
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