All I remember

My first memory is of standing in front of a vending machine in Moab watching the pink Granny B's sugar cookie fall to where my small hands could reach.

I remember being a poodle in tap shoes and looking at the feet of the girl next to me as she looked at the girl next to her as she looked at the teacher for direction.

I remember playing Scooby Doo in preschool with Haley Smith. We were both Daphne.

I remember the paper Barbie tablecloth at my fifth birthday party and how it caught fire because my dad thought it would be a good idea to use trick candles.

I remember playing horses in the field at recess with the cool girls in first grade. The only time I've been somewhat popular.

I remember getting in trouble in second grade, so my teacher told me to stay in class while everyone else walked to the lunch room and she said she'd come back to bring me down there after they sat down. I remember sitting in her darkened room crying through lunchtime because she forgot to come back for me. She seemed surprised that I was so obedient and didn't just walk down to the lunchroom on my own. I remember being forgotten. Completely forgotten.

I remember deciding I hated Connor Bartlett in third grade. No one was ever sure why. Especially not me.

I remember winning the "guess how many candies are in the candy jar" game in fourth grade because I figured out the teacher's pattern. 214 candies for Valentines Day. You sneaky mom.

I remember my fifth grade teacher being proposed to in the middle of class and how I thought it was so romantic. Because nothing's more romantic than getting engaged in the middle of an elementary school. I mean, it smells so good, like cafeteria food and children who don't use deodorant yet.

I remember being in Athens with the smart kids instead of Sparta with the cool kids during our Greek unit in sixth grade. I'll be honest, I was never considered an athlete in any way, shape, or form.

I remember seventh grade when I was reaching the end of my awkward phase but my stomach was still bigger than my chest and my braces cut my lips.

I remember the cops getting called on us during my thirteenth birthday party because we were terrible children.

I remember slapping my new group of friends in eighth grade as punishment for swearing. I remember them all getting their first boyfriends, first kisses, first heartbreaks. I remember listening. I remember being a third wheel almost anytime I tried to hang out with anyone. Little has changed.

I remember stuffing our bras before stake dances because we thought that would make us more appealing. Well, I'm not stuffing now, but guess who still hasn't gotten her first kiss? I've been told it's because I'm kind of abrasive. Whatever.

I remember getting hit in the face by a flying banana peel in ninth grade and how the boy who threw it and his friends all laughed. I think he felt bad, but how ridiculous is it that someone got hit in the face with a banana peel, right? What could be funnier? I remember trying to laugh it off, but I remember tearing up. Projectile banana peels to the face actually do hurt, in case you were curious.

I remember tenth grade when a boy finally liked me and I remember liking him back. I remember him telling me that he didn't want to pair off. I remember finding out two weeks later that he and my friend were going out, as of two days after he broke it off with me. I remember not blaming her. I remember that I had never actually told her the situation with him. I remember that I was really only mad about the lies.

I remember eleventh grade. I remember gaining new friends and growing away from old ones. I remember my friend trying to kiss me. I remember him telling me he liked me and I remember my response when he asked if I liked him back. "I don't know." I remember telling him it couldn't work the next Monday because his mission+my awkward=sucky relationship. I remember it being more about his permanent residence in the friend-zone and my inability to see him any other way. And I still haven't written him. Whoops.

I remember twelfth grade. I remember AP tests and D minuses in calculus and writing poetry instead of FRQs. I remember Alis and The Truth and Priscilla informing me of it as I ate cheesecake pancakes at an IHOP in Southern California. I remember connecting pen names to faces and wondering if I actually know anything about anyone I've gone to school with for years. I remember trying to stay out of drama and I remember getting sucked back into drama. I remember that it was never my drama. I remember pronouncing drama with the first a pronounced like the a in "stamina" and I pronounced the word "samba" the same way. Lambda. Delta nu. I remember Legally Blonde and I remember Death Cab for Cutie, and I don't know how the two connect to each other and to twelfth grade, but if I find out I'll tell you.

--Erin