The First Time

The first time I really took notice of a boy was in the darn 4th Grade. 

That was not my best year - besides winning the cake walk AND the spelling bee.

I remember the first day of school like I remember the apple fritter I just ate an hour ago...

I had to have been wearing a homemade outfit.

My hair was either permed (fried like the apple fritter I ate an hour ago) or it was extremely short so as not to notice that the homemade perm had literally destroyed every strand of hair that once was on my head.

I walked into my new fourth grade classroom and, sitting all by himself at the desk with his arms folded, was Eric.

If you just heard angels singing from on high as you read that - I also heard them on that very day.

I swear to you that when I laid my 10 year old eyes on him, it was as if I had just seen Fabio running down the beach in his fake-tanned, bulky chest and long hair strides.

And, I guarantee there was some Whitney Houston music going through my head.

He didn't even look up.

Now, in the fourth grade, I was the same height as I am now.

Awkward is not the word here, People.

I felt like Sasquatch, and I was called it frequently.

I was tall for my age.

I was slightly overweight at the time.

I wore homemade clothes, Rainbow Brite undies that were too small and I had an issue with the hair thing. It was not a rad mixture of coolness.

I did everything in my power to get Eric to like me.

Read that sentence again.

I did everything in MY power to GET Eric to LIKE ME.

I cringe when I write that.

Even winning the dang spelling bee wasn't enough!

The one-piece jumpsuit didn't help my case.

Then there was the FIXED beauty contest that year - which I won - because my mother was the PTA President.

Fourth grade was the beginning of the end of this girl.

Eric was in my class again in the fifth grade.

Ms. Meserlian surely knew that I was completely in LOVE with Eric.

I'm pretty sure people who didn't even attend Malloch Elementary School could feel the actual lust in my heart for him.

But he never even glanced at me.

Not once.

If I had just been thinner, prettier, smarter, good at something - anything...

It was around this same incredibly optimistic year that I began to recognize that my dad coached little league baseball.

He had been coaching for a few years at that point.

But now, in all of my Sasquatch glory, I really noticed that there were constantly boys around.

Lots of boys.

Boys of all ages.

Boys everywhere.

And the ONLY time I think any of them noticed me was that time when my own brother (the one who stole my birthday quite literally... who chooses to be born on their sister's first birthday?!) hit me square in the face with a fast ball pitch.

I wasn't even on the field of play!!

Dad coached for most of my childhood - clear until I was 17.

Mom would call herself a "summer-time widow."

Dad would work his jobs, then go right to the ballpark for practices and games and meetings.

My brothers and I would often meet him there.

Those fields are where we would have dinner, do our homework, get our exercise, and volunteer with Mom in the snack shop to earn funds for uniforms, trips and equipment.

Dad was well respected in the baseball community.

He knew his stuff.

Parents would do anything they could to ensure my dad coached their son, particularly if their son was a pitcher.

Dad was good. Very, very good.

I loved watching him coach.

I loved the sounds and the smells of the baseball fields.

I loved that I could out-smart most adult males on the rules of the game.

I was my dad's fiercest protector and biggest cheerleader.

But, what I know now as I look back on those years and years of watching my daddy on the baseball field was that what I was doing was simply watching my daddy with other kids.

Boys.

Talented athletes, even at young ages.

He was praising them.

He was teaching them.

He was laughing with them.

He knew everything about them.

And their families.

He would tell them how proud he was of them.

How good they were.

What good hand-eye coordination they had.

What good speed they had on their five-seam change-up.

What good reflexes and speed they had.

How they were incredibly good at hitting all five pitching spots.

How they were awesome with beanies and windows.

He spent my entire childhood telling other children all of the things that I was so desperate to hear.

It somehow gave me more fuel to be "liked" by the boys.

To be noticed by a male.

To be praised, talented and enough...

And thus began an addiction.