Up until high school having a boyfriend really doesn’t entail anything more than an exploration of the term boyfriend. I had lots of friends that were boys all my life. In fact, most of my friends have been boys even when I went along without a boyfriend. But when I got to high school then I had my first “real” boyfriend. It ended very badly, and so I consider little Chris from the kindergarten playground to be my first boyfriend. Chris had black hair, that I remember well. He still had black hair when we graduated from high school, although my own reddish hair had turned blonde over the years. The memory of kindergarten holds a place in my history that seems far more positive, a more cherished memory, than the first boyfriend from high school.

My first actual love had to be in college. I still keep up with him but in retrospect I’m not even sure what it was that was so heartbreaking about the breakup. Perhaps the first breakup with a boyfriend is the hardest. In fact, I’m sure it is the hardest. That first heartbreak is the hardest to overcome and to adjust to. After the first boyfriend heartbreak the boyfriend situation gets a lot easier. It becomes easier to stay away from the boyfriend who you know will not work out. It becomes easier to let the boyfriend just go when it works out wrongly. It just gets easier when it comes to having a boyfriend and knowing when it is time to not have a boyfriend.Perhaps the memory of the first boyfriend is just nicer, just because you’re too young to know that you should be hurt or jealous. Haha.


But my first little kindergarten boyfriend holds a special place in my heart. Perhaps it was the interest in my shoes, haha. Perhaps it is because kindergarten was a bit traumatic for me with my parents getting a divorce and being the first one in the school to have parents getting a divorce. Perhaps it is because I cannot remember any time since kindergarten that I felt as cute and pretty as I did in kindergarten. I suppose that you would remember with the greatest fondness any time when you were not cursed with being self-conscious or feeling less than you imagine you want to be. Kindergarten was likely the last time I felt that straight about myself. I was the smartest girl in the class and was one of the cutest also. The little playground boyfriend I had at that time did think he was in love with me unconditionally and I think that I remember that most of all. It was only kindergarten after all, so things were a little more simple as far as self-esteem and knowing what was going on, perhaps. Kindergarten was way before puberty or sexual issues or the awkwardness of adolescence or the turmoil of university life. Kindergarten was when books become a huge part of an individual’s life, and knowledge opens up in front of you with the realization that you’re going to still be in school a decade into the future. For me, the idea of still being in school over a decade into the future was a horrible thought. I remember the first day of kindergarten that I came home and had decided that I was not going to go back. I wanted no part of being in school for the rest of my life. And that attitude never changed until I arrived in college. Throughout my school years until I got to college I waited awkwardly and with much humiliation until the day arrived when I would have a choice on whether or not to go to school every morning. And so, that first boyfriend, way back in kindergarten probably holds a special place in my heart because it was something there during that time that made me feel unconditionally good.

Or maybe it was the shoes.