My First Love

Do you remember your first love or crush? I remember mine like it was yesterday. I wrote an essay about it and I wanted to share it with you. All names have been changed to protect the innocent :-)


My First Love


My first love was Cole Morgan. I was twelve and he was a couple of years older. He would come over and haul hay for my dad during the summer.

He always wore blue jeans and a T-shirt that he would eventually lose because it was too hot to wear. I made every excuse I could think of to go to the hayfield. I took the guys water, lemonade, sodas, et., just whatever so I could stare at Cole.

This was funny to my family because I have always been more of an inside person. I spent most of my time in my room with my nose stuck in a book. Except when Cole was around, I was outside where he was.

Cole had light brown hair, gorgeous blue eyes, and a beautiful smile. I never did talk to him other than to say "Hi," or "Would you like a drink?" We made lots of eye contact and shared many smiles between us.

I was not the only one who had a crush on Cole. My sister, Lisa and our cousin, Diana both had crushes on him, too. We formed our own Cole Morgan Fan Club and got those goofy pirate hats from Long John Silver's and wore them during our meetings. We sang songs that were about other people but we substituted his name in where their names were at. We called his house and if he wasn't there we would talk to his older brother, Tyler. My siser would pretend her name was Stephanie and ask Tyler if Cole liked any of us. It always broke our hearts when Tyler would't know who were and tell us that Cole never mentioned our names to him.

If our parents had to go to Cole's house for any reason, we made sure we got to ride along, just on the slim chance we might catch a glimpse of him. We also had to pass his house to go to our grandparents house so we always made sure to go to their house, too. Even though it was really boring there because we weren't allowed to do anything. (Side note: Both of my dad's parents had diabetes and they never felt well so we weren't allowed to act like kids at their house. We had to sit quietly and do nothing or watch whatever boring program they were watching on tv. I usually brought a book along to keep me occupied.) You can see just how bad we had it for Cole by submitting ourselves to that torture just on the off chance he was at home AND outside when we drove by.

Then we found out he worked at the sale barn in town. We went with our parents to the sale. Our cousin Diana was with us that day. We were wandering around outside, looking at the cattle in the pens when I spotted Cole. Diana couldn't see him so she climbed up on the fence to get a better look. Somehow she lost her footing and began to fall. She yelled out Cole's name as she was falling. It embarrassed all of us but especially my mother because the rest of us ducked down so he wouldn't see us. He thought she was the one who had yelled at him.

My parents were members of the Watts Riding Club and we went to rodeos every summer. One night at the rodeo, Diana and I were riding our horses around outside of the rodeo grounds and we saw Cole's brother, Tyler riding toward us. Diana asked him,"Where's Cole?

Tyler replied," At Beaver Lake.

Diana didn't hear him and said," Out on a date?"

"At Beaver Lake."

"He's on a date?''

"No, I said he's at Beaver Lake!"

"Oh, he's at Beaver lake." We rode away on our horses, giggling. Tyler probably thought we were deaf AND crazy.

I saw Cole about 15 years ago when I was working at a fast food place. He had changed a lot and was definitely not the cute boy I remembered from my childhood. I had heard from others that he had seen a boy drown at Crystal Lake (no, not the the one from the Friday the 13th movies) when he was around 16 or 17 years old and that he'd got into drugs really bad. I think I saw a light of recognition in his eyes, but I just pretended that I didn't know who he was.


Every once in a while when I pass a hay field, I think of Cole (the boy he used to be) and I long for those days -- to be a child again and have this whole wide world to look forward to.


I hope you enjoyed my story. It is all true, except I changed all names to protect their privacy.

Have a great day,

Lana

p.s. I forgot to mention -- Cole caught my eye because he was cute, had a nice body, and was just plain fun to look at :-) If you'd like, tell me about your first love/crush and the goofy things you did to catch their eye and get them to notice you. I'd love to hear your stories!