I was 13 years old and determined to start acting my age. I was done with Barbie’s and children’s pop up books; I was ready for shaving my legs and reading Lois Lowry.  For girls at that age, it was competitive. You wanted to do all those things that teenagers experienced before your friends did. I never thought i was this way until i discovered that a lot of my diary from that time was filled with updates of jealousy from those girls around me more fortunate. There were three things that i had to accomplish, or gain, in order to be considered a “cool teenager” (even if i was like,12). Kissing a boy, having a boyfriend, and getting my period was what I needed to do.

 Surprisingly, getting my period was the easy part.I woke up one morning and noticed a blood stain in my underwear before taking a shower. No embarrassing camp stories or bloody road trips with my dad to Indiana. I was thankful then for not having an horrific story to go along with getting my period, but now I kinda wish I was going on a snorkeling expedition or climbing Mount St. Helen’s when I got it, just for story’s sake. I didn’t tell my mom when it happened because she tends to be theatrical in these sort of situations, and I knew she’d tell the rest of my family, which I definitely didn’t want her to do. She eventually figured it out a day or two later and was a little heart broken that I didn’t tell her (and then she told my whole family).

  Step two seemed difficult, but not impossible.  My first victim was Dan Weber. Now, I don’t want you to get the impression that Dan had no choice in the matter. He was more of the connoisseur back then than I ever will be in my life, but I definitely laid on a little charm to help him along. We met at church. There was this program for middle school students that I went to every week to keep an eye on all the cuties that were in my grade that also had succumbed to going to the evening service at church on Sundays with their parents.

        Every week we would ride the fancy bus (my church was huge) to someone’s house and depending on the time of the year, we would either go sledding or go swimming and play soccer in the backyard. Dan had just broken up with Dana on the ride over to the house we would be playing volleyball at. He asked me out on the way home. I told him I didn’t know (I didn’t want to seem desperate, which I was), but that he could call me in a day or so and maybe I would reach my decision by then. He called me two days later and I told him that yes, I would be his girlfriend.

        Lucky for him, Church camp was the next week. Lucky for me, my cabin was on the other side of the campground from where he stayed. I did do a pretty good job of avoiding him all week, up until the bus ride home. Both of my friends had gotten quasi-boyfriends at camp, so they naturally sat with them at the back of the bus by me, followed by Dan.  I was doing a good job at pretending to be sleeping, up until Dan flat out asked me if he could kiss me. I told him, as I was looking down at a bottle of pop, that my “mouth was really dry and that it wouldn’t be pleasant.”  I was into the idea of kissing someone, but I was still saving my first kiss for my long time crush David and I didn’t want to waste something so special on some boy who I didn’t like and wasn’t even that cute. After seeing Dan ONLY at church for the next 2 weeks, we finally broke up. No feelings hurt, step two completed.      

 The 3rd step was way more nerve-wrecking. Somehow my friend Rachel rallied up our close guy friends in a room and persuaded them (it wasn’t hard) to play spin the bottle with my girl friends and I.  Once it was my turn, I channeled my inner telekinetic forces to move the bottle to make it point to David, thus sealing the deal in forcing him to kiss me and helping me out in my quest to take over the world. But to my dismay, the bottle landed on Josh Crow, the 8th grade quarterback of the junior football team. You could imagine my disappointment when I did everything seventeen magazine told me to do in this sort of situation and I still felt unprepared and embarrassed as 10 people watched me receive my very awkward first kiss.

        Kissing David wasn’t all I had built it up to be. I think I remember being a bit disappointed. I had to leave in the middle of our “game” because I had to go to my student-teacher conference, but I found out that things got a bit hot-n-heavy afterwards. Kissing on the cheek lead to kissing on the lips, which lead to making out, which lead to groping on my friends dad’s bed. Everyone there had a partner except David. Oh,what would I have done if I were still there?

        I remember walking home that day feeling a bit of shock, but also feeling like there was no way anyone could accuse me of not being cool or inexperienced. I wasn’t a dorky kid. The world was my oyster. I knew how to kiss and I could give birth to a kid if I wanted to, and I could say that someone wanted to be associated with me enough to be called my boyfriend. I had no worries. That is, until sex starting being a big deal and actually keeping a boyfriend (that actually liked you) for longer than a month was an issue.