THE MAGIC OF CIVICS...

If anyone had told me 20 years ago, that I would have spent the last 15 minutes before sunset walking across a hay field watching the skies for geese, inhaling the scent of Gio cologne wafting through the air that my crush from junior high was wearing, I would have told them they were completely insane. And yet, it's true. I did that tonight. I'm sitting here right now shaking my head and smiling, knowing my history with this boy.
It all started in my 7th grade Civics class. I scored a seat in the back corner of the room, right by the door. So when the "hall monitors" came to pick up the attendance for that hour, I had a prime view. Of course the teacher for this class was beyond cool...Mr. 'M' was young and had a knack for relating to the younger generation while still maintaining a necessary level of authority. He also thought it be "fun" to play on the "weakness" of a "little girl's" crush. He caught me gazing at this boy every time he came around. He'd even prolong my "agony" by holding him up with casual conversation. It was SO HARD not to just stare at this boy and soak up every feature, his sparkly eyes, his cute blond hair, his intoxicating smile...*sigh*....yes, this boy had everything a 7th grade girl could ever want or dream of. He was a year older than I, and hung with the popular crowd if I remember correctly; which meant a few things, one of which was that he was waaaa-haay out of my league. So I was left with nothing but my daily dose of the boy when he came to pick up attendance. And somehow, that was good enough for me. BUT...hoooo-hoooo, BUT--Mr. M, sensed that I wanted more. So during his "casual" conversation with the boy, I heard him mention my name along with "she's cute right?" All I could think was "Oh, holy fuuuuuuck." I don't think I looked at the boy for a week after that, for fear he would somehow think I had asked Mr. M to say those things to him about me. But I couldn't hold out any longer than a week. No way. I missed his eyes. I missed his smile. I missed his voice. I missed his laugh. And technically, he'd never know these things. And he never did.
Then, one faithful day, September 1, 2009, as I was laying in the middle of a wheat field, on opening day of goose season, I was checking FaceBook. On my page, "the boy" had been my "friend" even though we'd never actually spoken. But we have mutual friends and went to school together--and well--you know how FaceBook works. So I see a post from the boy stating: Text me the goose report *cell number*. I half laughed and half cringed because, here I was, in the PERFECT position to communicate with the boy, but so I go out on a limb and actually DO IT?! Well, either I was feeling especially brave that morning or the lack of sleep caused a temporary lapse of good judgment in my brain because I just "DID IT". When I hit "send", I screamed inside and squeezed my eyes shut waiting for the backlash. It wasn't 10 minutes later that my BlackBerry chirped and I had one new text. Oh crap. My heart started pounding but I knew I had to finish what I started. The text read something to the effect of: "thanks, who is this?". Then I was like shiiiiiit. So I decided to bust out my wits and go to war with the boy. So I replied that I was the queen of the GOOSE MAFIA and he requested the goose report so who better to get it from than "ME"?? So eventually he nailed it down to who I was and we "joked" about a joint hunt someday.
WELL...turns out "someday" wasn't too far off in the future. We planned to meet out at the "D.O.T." In October, just about a month after our first contact. I was sooooo excited....but sooooo-oooh nervous. I'd say there were butterflies in my tummy but that would be completely inaccurate. It was more like BATS flop'n around in there. So finally, we meet he jumps out of his truck, and turns around, and this wave of heat washed over me. I was instantly that "little girl" back in 7th grade, with the crush on the 8th grade 7th hour hall monitor. His eyes, his smile...all fully intact. Damn him. But I had to get it together. So I tried my best and introduced him to the guys and got the hunt under way.
After that things just got better, our friendship grew and we even revisited the 7th grade crush incident. He claimed he didn't know. But I think he was just being polite as to protect my school girl crush memories. We even joke about it in front of everyone else, but it's more of an inside joke and a way for us to rip on each other. But I love it. I love those eyes. I love that smile. I love that laugh. The only difference is that, now he KNOWS about it...