Re: Crush

The emotion of love has many synonyms but crush is my favourite. I’ve been in love with the female gender for all my life. I sat in the grade two row of a one room school house in rural Ontario when I was so overcome with infatuation that I blew a loud kiss to a beautiful girl in the sixth row. The much older girl had helped me make awesome structures out of piles of fragrant leaves during recess. I was smitten by her giggles. The teacher caught my love gesture and made me come to the front of the class where I was made to kiss the length of the blackboard. I sat back in my place, lips all chalky and feeling the blush of shame.

Later, now a student in a suburban school, I chose to share brown bag lunches with a gorgeous brunette. She was in my grade but in the class across the hall. We both sat at the back of our room so when the doors were open we could wave to each other. She was my one and only valentine. When my mother expressed alarm at a Parent/Teacher meeting about my crush, she was told not to worry as it was only puppy love. I think she thought I was obsessed for a while but it was really, singularly, merely a friendship. We liked teaching each other card games. I cheered her on at hopscotch or while she dazzled me with double dutch skipping. When I stepped up to the plate in baseball I could hear her calls of encouragement. I went to her house on fireworks day but felt regret later for missing our family’s traditional balcony extravaganza. I remember the pang of ending our relationship, whatever it was. My heart wasn’t broken. I felt relief that summer’s freedom was within reach. A shrug seems cruel.

Interesting how the word Crush seems apt for the unexplainable emotions connected to the first blossoming of romantic feelings. When we are older we may get a crusher of a headache or feel the crushing weight of responsibilities. In our youth holding hands can be enough to send our thoughts to the moon and back, smashing all thoughts of school projects/tests or parents’ demands to clean our rooms. I can see why some cultures are afraid of the notion of adolescent crushes. Kids are still kids in many ways, yet the maturation process is an uneven thing.

I don’t recall any connection to my sexuality with my crushes. One gal broke up with me because I didn’t want to take things “to the next level”. Phewff, she was aggressive. I was a late bloomer that way and was likely naive to any girl who showed physical attraction towards me. When I look back through grade school my connections were about friendships, first and primarily. In adulthood too the intensity of my love for another is of the steady beating kind; not necessarily measured by explosive fireworks but like the consistent lap of waves upon a shore.