Jay Elias | You can take it with you

"I have wasted Time, and now doth
Time waste me"
- Richard II

2002-01-09- 9:58 p.m.

Before High School: My First Girlfriend

My first girlfriend’s name was Christina. It was kind of strange how quickly everything changed for me. It took less than a month of the seventh grade for me to not only make friends, but to get a girlfriend. I have to admit, it felt amazing. It was like I was me again, after so long having been someone else. And for a long time there (okay, just a couple of months) everything felt really normal. But look at it this way; when you are twelve or thirteen years old, a few months is forever.
I must admit, my memory of the beginning of junior high is really hazy. Really, most of junior high to me in general is like looking at someplace you once visited from really far away. It all seems very familiar, but I can’t pick out the details. Another simile: it is kind of like looking really close at a Monet painting; some of the patterns are recognizable, but the big picture eludes you. My memories of the first few months of junior high are episodic; there is no real narrative that unites them.
For reasons that I can’t understand, most of my memories of that time are of math class. I don’t have a clue why. I hate math, I’m no good at math, and have I mentioned that I hate math? To me, math is like a powerful enemy which needs to be respected and somewhat understood, but deep down, I wish I could wipe it off the face of the earth. But all my memories of the first part of junior high revolve around math class. My seventh grade math teacher was Ms. Eckstein. She was a truly huge woman. I mean, she literally had to turn sideways to fit through the classroom door. You know how kids will tease a person for being fat? We didn’t tease Ms. Eckstein. We were in awe of her. We would speak about her in the sort of hushed tones that Hindus use to talk about Shiva.
Ms. Eckstein isn’t the point. While most of my memories of this time do take place in or around math class, she isn’t a part of any of them. She was just a very large woman and we were all very small kids. Not that any of that matters. If it helps, she wasn’t very nice, but she was an okay teacher. I learned algebra.
The point is that in Ms. Eckstein’s class, Christina sat to the right of me, and Rachel Blum sat in front of me. The result turned out to be that Rachel and I became friends, while Christina and I started going out.
Every junior high has its own slang. In my junior high, we called dating “going together”. When I was in junior high, my mom would always ask me, “going where?” Now that I’m a grown-up, my mom has co-opted that turn of phrase, and I’m the one who ends up asking her where I’m supposed to be going. All of you parents out there, take note: it doesn’t pay to try and keep up with slang. Try as you might, you’ll end up embarrassing yourself and your kids. Sorry. I know, it’s a tough life.
Christina and I had a pretty intense relationship for seventh graders. We would make out constantly, and after a little while, she would let me feel her up, which was pretty exciting for a twelve-year old. I know that all you twelve-year olds out there now can all talk about the benefits of a PVC bustier and safe words and shit like that, but back when I was a lad, this was a big deal. Once, our parents even let us go out on a date together alone once. We went to the movies, where we saw either “Without a Clue” or “Young Sherlock Holmes”. I’m not sure which one, but I am certain it was one of the two. Whichever one it was, I really have no idea what it was about. Christina and I spent the entire movie in a liplock. In fact, not to get into too many details, but I got pretty close to heavy petting for a seventh grader, which in retrospect is kind of odd considering I wasn’t even masturbating yet.
But I digress.
The real reason that I wanted to write about Christina is to tell how it happened that we broke up. I made the decision to break up with her in math class. I was looking over at her, and as I did so I noticed that she had a great deal of wax buildup in her ears. All of a sudden, I was totally repulsed by her. I had never even thought about anything like that before, but at that very instant, I knew that I would never want to touch her again. I broke up with her the next evening. I did it over the phone, which as an adult I would find extremely cowardly. She took it pretty well. The funny thing is that as soon as I said it, I was filled with regret. I think that maybe, at the age of twelve, I had already become the kind of guy who really wants a hand to hold, someone to call his own. The next morning, we sat next to each other in math class. I don’t remember the two of us saying a word to each other for the next year.

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Doesn't Take Much and That's Messed Up - 2004-03-15
Like Water Under Bridges - 2003-09-08
Jesus On The Dashboard - 2003-08-13
An Administrative Announcement - 2003-08-11
Don't Worry, It's Coming - 2003-08-02

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