My First Crush

I've been catching up on my favorite author's blog tonight. Pat Conroy doesn't post often, but I don't catch up often. So it works. 

I read tonight about his lost love from 8th grade, a crush that reminded me of my own love life back in 1982. Me, a pale four-eyed sub-sub freshman - yes, we called ourselves that because having a name was almost like being a senior! I was a frumpy shyish girl, clothed almost entirely from the Sears & Roebuck catalog and Park's Belk and Dave's, one who didn't at all worry about my big hair and its resemblance to the Shoney's Big Boy. I faithfully toted to school my green-cased clarinet along with my armload of books and notebooks. No backpack for me, or for any of my friends now that I think about it. When exactly were backpacks invented? I also carried, much to my embarrassment, a lunch box that was actually a brown vinyl drawstring pouch with hangy-down ears and a dog face drawing and the words "doggie bag" along the bottom. Cool is what I was not. 

But I was madly in love with Michael McElroy. It started in 7th grade when Patricia Moore dared to name her crush, and then she rated him a perfect 10. I, feeling pressured to cough up one for myself, hastily picked Michael. I think I called him a 9.5. He was a year ahead of me, but his locker was right across the hall from mine. I was drawn to his smile, I think. I'm not positive, seeing as how I didn't even know him at the time. But I chose him. And I made it my business to eyeball this mystery boy who could be found between classes trading books and jokes with friends in the dim light of the 7th and 8th grade wing. I spent the next several years (yes, I'm a committed sort of girl) loving the idea of loving this boy. 

And to think we actually became very good friends, even after a brief stint of "going together".  It was very brief as I recall, but I'll always remember riding bikes with Michael and Maureen down around the post office and Maureen calling out to me, "Michael wants to know if you'll go with him." I replied seductively, "Huh???" And she said, "Believe it, it's true." And for a minute or a day, we did "go together." Michael and I. 

It was purely innocent. We never touched. We hardly talked. But I tell you, we did "go together." Like peanut butter and jelly and chips and dip and rama lama lama ke dinga de dinga a dong, remembered forever like shoo bop shoo wadda wadda yipitty boom de boom. 

I was Michael Mac's girlfriend for a moment in time. And that was just enough. Then in later years, we became real, true friends, hanging out after lifeguard duty in the summers and during the weekends and breaks of college. Tied together by laughter, the Pet Shop Boys, Coca Cola shirts, and spring socials. He and Candace. I with Jon, for a few times. Friends, the all of us.

Michael was decidedly my very first crush. And to this day, I smile when I think of him. 

As providence would have it, a decade later, Michael became best of friends with my sister Michelle. He found his way to Shell's world in Florida and took up with her and her husband, Brian. Together they created a boatload of laughs and memories. Shell possessed both a giggle and wistfulness when she talked of their crazy adventures. She thrived in helping Michael out, the newcomer to Florida. She loved her life down there with husband and friends. She was so good at it all.

When she died, we cried together. I will never forget Michael and me sobbing at her funeral, bound together by that unspeakable grief. We took a break from the formalness of it all and walked out to the parking lot at Hagy-Fawbush Funeral Home, not "going together", but going together. We could breathe out here, outside of the carnation-scented parlor where she lay. We could freely laugh at Shell's funny moments, remember her gifts, eulogize her way with people. Just be. 

In this parking lot I realized just how precious my first crush was. Michael was not just my first love, he was my friend for life. Bound by Michelle's love for this world and him and me. I may have met him in 7th grade, but I truly knew him at my sister's funeral. We loved Shell for everything she was. We loved her ability to love. 

Shell freely loved people. She loved their goodness in spite of their flaws. She loved with all of herself, without the selfishness I have or the judgment of the world. Shell loved. 

That night, under the blanket of stars and cloud of parking lot smokers, Michael and I wanted to be more like her. To this day, I am moved to love like Michelle did. I remember how her friends from far and wide gathered to remember her awesome, big love. And I want to live up to that. I want my 7th grade self to love like her big-hearted Michelle-ness did.