On the Cusp (of Crazy)

After my month long love affair with my bad boy first kiss, I'd like to think that I was put on the map in terms of the 7th grade popularity rank. My gangley arms, crooked teeth, giant glasses and all around weird personality kept me right on the cusp of being popular, but I never quite made it there. However, that didn't stop me from dating above and beyond my social status, so when Joe asked me out -- correction, when Joe demanded we go out -- I clearly obliged. 

As you can see, the newfound popularity was already getting to my head. I didn't even have enough time to truly fill my diary in that week on my intense feelings that had developed over four days. How did our flirtation begin? Why didn't I include his romantic declaration of love and proposal for my hand in going-out-dom? What was I going to wear to the dance? Were Joe and I going to get our french on?

So many unanswered questions!

Well, apparently all I needed to know was that dating out of your league has its downsides. For example, you become completely insane.

"He's my boyfriend and he's cooler than me." HA. 


Also, I don't want you guys to get the wrong impression about this track thing. I wasn't kidding about the gangley arms, and they were paired with some equally awkward and useless legs. I typically went to track in order to flirt with Joe, walk around the track a few times and then cry shin splints. I never ran in a single track meet the two years I was on the team. 


And yet somehow I wonder why I got cut from the softball team in high school after putting down my (metaphorical, because we weren't allowed to have them) pom-pons after I finished my big bad 8th grade year. 


Finally, I suppose I didn't trust my vow to overcome the three big relationship hurdles (ha, track pun) I was committing to if they were only in my diary. So I drew up a little contract, found a notary and made it official:

If I could go back, I would likely erase point number two. After all, this was the same girl who shoved shaving cream in my face and was all up on my men all the time.

(Confession: I distinctly remember requesting "The Boy is Mine" at school dances and singing it loudly and with attitude to my friends while standing extremely close to her. This may have gotten me pushed into lockers in high school, but I think it was worth it.)

Well I worked and worked to keep our relationship alive, but something still wasn't right. 

Perhaps my desperation to be the cool kid's girlfriend - even if he never spoke to me - was a bit of a turn off? Perhaps the fact that I justified calling him a million times a day by claiming that it wasn't that much if you divided it between his two parents' houses. Or perhaps that I stuck out like a sore thumb at the cool kid parties, because only one other person talked to me and half of them didn't know my name. 

But ya know what Joe? Despite all that, if god bestows a miracle upon my brush with popularity and allows you to put up with my pitiful self-esteem, then by golly! "Let's go out."