Hey There E’rybody!
This was a draft in my inbox that I wrote a long while back when thinking about my life, my wants and how I got where I was… still dreaming, wishing and hoping. I hesitated to post it because it was very personal, and shares some details about past crushes, including a possibly “problematic” celebrity. Not necessarily a crush I’m ashamed of, as I express below, however, I am hesitant to get involved in this way. However, after some time, I’ve been brought back to this draft and compelled to go right on and share.
With all that being said, this personal share was an effort to express a longing I’ve had from a very young age… and it seems that how we show up in the world becomes “Oh so very important” to everyone perceiving you. Like you can’t appear one way and be another… we as humans are very complex individuals comprised on enormous amounts of variables. To be able to qualify someone upon perception is extremely narrow minded. To require anyone to be labeled or put in a box is criminal.
I didn’t finish the story below. I got through my time in Michigan and a couple years in Sun City – circa early 2000s.
My journey is my own. I am a sovereign being. This ends of your story of me as I continue to write my own. And if you want the rest of it… book me. (LOL)
Let’s have a conversation about crushes. and me.
I have always had a crush – my first being 3rd grade – what is this then? Age 8.
I remember giving a boy TWO Valentine’s Day cards to express my love and asked him not to tell anyone… and what did he do? “Jacque gave me two valentines!” Mortifying.
In 5th grade I had my first real boyfriend. Letters everyday, thoughtful little gifts to each other. Plans to meet at recess… it was the whole thing. However, he was deemed a distraction and adults “conspired” to break us up. It was a “fifth grade tragedy”.
I recently reached out to the adults involved at the time about this event in my life. After having gone back to this relationship in an acting exercise I was intrigued about the other sides of this story. Through tears I tried to understand why they wouldn’t let us have our innocent little relationship. My memory of it was that he was a trouble maker and therefore they didn’t want me influenced by him. In reconnecting on it they both established that fifth grade was no place for a relationship and wanted us to just be friends. I vaguely recall after having broke up – he had a really bad outburst in class and he had to be suspended.
Our versions of our own history are never the whole story, only our interpretation of it.
For the next year, 6th grade, I’d “hound and pester” until a boy said “yes”, we’d talk on the phone & sit together at lunch for a week and then he’d break up with me. Then I was on to “hound” the next possible boy into saying “yes”. It sounds awful, and I’m not proud of it, yet, it was still all very innocent. I enjoyed doing the same things as them and I liked them, eventually they all became “friend zones”. Going into middle school I had already cycled through the boys in my class and I started crushing on all the HS boys I’d pass in the halls, giggling and flirting oddly through the veil of “kidding” around. I “latched” onto one boy & for two years, there was no one else. This feller was very kind to me. I was lucky to have crushed on a good guy. I’d even reached out to apologize in my adult years for being an overwhelming little “pest”. With such grace, just as he had way back when, expressed that he always enjoyed my company. *swoon*
That’s it though – through HS – I just swooned. I have journal entry upon journal entry about the boys I fancied and the little “itty bitty” instances that sparked some feeling of hope… for romance. I was obsessed by the romance of all of it. I truly had a Disney princess ideal about love… I believed true love was out there, I believed in the happily ever after & I wanted to feel it, experience it, live in it. I wanted fireworks and butterflies. I’m a little embarrassed to say, I prayed for it… A LOT.
I never got it. Not in HS. Not even in College. I had crushes on some of the coffee house kids my friends hung around. I once invited someone up into my room and attempted to make-out, but it wasn’t the right fit and I quickly ended it.
At this time in my life, first year of College – I actually was crushing on Kevin Spacey. I say this with a cringe, because of… well, you probably know, so I don’t have to recap. Funny enough, his “Keysor Soze” just blew my mind and so I “latched” on to his career. During this time he was called out for being gay and I thought “hey man, it’s totally great, just come out.” & he didn’t – & I was bummed, but it didn’t stop me from crushing on him, I followed him into loving the movie, “LOVING” – did I say, “LOVING” – LA Confidential, for far more than his contribution, but none the less, he got me there, and all the way to NYC to see Iceman Cometh. & Then American Beauty, and *big ole sigh* this movie – left me with a bad taste in my mouth. Something seemed off… I just kind of remember thinking, I don’t know how I feel about this guy right now. So I started to drift away… Later I would go back to a friend’s house back in my “bar regular” days and he had a friend in from LA who was in bad shape. My friend told me this fella worked for Kevin and he was mentally & physically abusive, and I had no trouble believing it. In fact, it confirmed my strange intuition of weirdness I was getting and so I stopped giving him any consideration. When things came out later about Kevin, I wasn’t at all surprised and hoped he got what he deserved. The challenging thing here is that these two movies, Usual Suspects and LA Confidential, shaped me in the years that I was immersed in the Hollywood Industry and chasing a film career. Then it inspired my trip to NYC by myself to see theater & the drive to experience some live Eugene O’Neil. The whole infatuation drew me to things that shaped me and I can’t discount that just because he was a bad egg. I took good things… and I can’t hate myself for crushing on someone very problematic before knowing they were.
After this I moved to AZ from Michigan and was living with my parents in the sweet retirement city of the Sun. I was isolated, no friends, no community, so I immersed myself into some old classic Hollywood celebrities and 30s and 40s musicians. I got infatuated with two simultaneously… Dean Martin & Cary Grant. So I dove into their worlds, their music/movies, their collaborators. I attempted to watch all of Cary Grants films. I read books on the era. So in conjunction I’m also diving into periods of American history. I got more plugged into the music, the culture, the people. There is a lot of peace when crushing on folks who are not of this present moment. The imagination of it is far more fictional and I started getting into writing dialogue as opposed to journaling. Also – a 19/20 year old female still chasing the happily ever after, now in imaginary fictional tales rather than imaginary circumstances within the realm of possibility.
I forgot to mention that most of my senior year of HS & first year of college – I was in and out of online relationships – I had a lot of online boyfriends. 🙂 I met a couple of folks, not boyfriends, but dudes I’d been chatting. I’m sure they thought we were on dates… but I never had interest in any of them and gratefully I never had problems just walking away.
Hey, let’s also check in about something. At this point in my story, I am still a virgin & my first kiss with the dude I brought up to my room was so sloppy & unromantic, I do not consider it a “first” kiss.
ONE FINAL REMARK
Just in case inquiring minds want to know (*wink*) I have kissed a girl (because life is for living), but I do not find women sexually attractive. I find women to be magnificent, powerful, fierce and fully deserving of leadership and authority. I do not wish to have sex with them. Thank you. and Narcism can suck it! Pew! Pew! GENX IS ON
Comments? Questions? Now’s your chance…