Denial, fear, and vulnerability

Picture this. It’s a warm day on the asphalt surrounding my school. I’m in Grade 1, and have taken a break from my crush on Joey P. to instead pine for Mike P. Mike had sparkling brown eyes, curly dark brown hair, and a heart-melting smile with teeth that were just crooked enough to be charming. We even had the same birthday.

Trusting, naïve soul that I was, I told my neighbour and then-best-friend, Carolyn (whose birthday, incidentally, was just a day before mine) that I liked Mike. Without a moment’s hesitation, she turned from the big green power transformer against which we had been leaning, located Mike a few feet away, and told him that I liked him.

My denial was swift and fierce. Like him? No WAY!!! The poor kid had actually started to smile at me, but it was too late. At six years of age, I was already convinced that he would never like me back, and I was intent on sparing myself the embarrassment of him thinking - knowing - that I had a crush on him.

This morning, when I was talking on the telephone with my mother, she was giggling and twittering about a post I’d written a couple of days ago about my first crush, the youngest son of her best friend, Jean. She thought it was really cute and asked my permission to show it to Jean. Despite the emotional distance I feel from my childhood crushes, and knowing intellectually that I have nothing to be ashamed of, the teasing note in her voice elicited the same feeling of embarrassment I felt as that long-ago day out on the playground tarmac.

I guess it’s progress, however, that I can see my pride and my sense of embarrassment for the vulnerability underneath. Next stop, hopefully: addressing why that vulnerability is there in the first place. Not that there's any imminent reason to; it obviously just needs to be done. :)