5. We all have our various firsts.

In my last actual post, I talked to you about Fred*. I also said that I would share more about Fred the next day. Well, Fred kind of disappeared for a while. Not really disappeared, but he wasn't as prominent in my life until later, once we were in junior high. Then he disappeared again until high school. And then again until a couple years after I graduated from high school. But I'm trying to tell you this in chronological order, so we'll re-visit Fred when the time becomes appropriate.

Fast forward to fifth grade. FIFTH GRADE PEOPLE. What was my first firsts in 5th grade? We'll get to that.

Summer before my fifth grade year, a mom of one of the boys in my grade asked if I would help her babysit her youngest son Jackson*. She offered to pay me $5 an hour (in 5th grade that's a lot of money!). Of course, I spent a lot of time hanging out at her house, which caused Noah* and I to accidentally start "going out." (Don't ask me why fifth graders tell their parents they're going out with someone. They really aren't going out anywhere except maybe to the playground during recess....ahhh innocence.) Noah and I hung out all the time, and his mom started giving him extra allowance because he would help me babysit Jackson. Noah and I went to elementary football games together (where he would play and I'd be there to hug him afterwards), we would go to our basketball games together (where we both played), and we would even go to the high school football games together. All of this driven by our parents of course.

Everything was great between Noah and I. We never kissed, we never said the L word. I mean we were like 8 (okay maybe 10, but you get the idea), and still pretty innocent.

Then the school's spring dance came up and my world was shattered. For some reason, Noah broke up with me. Not only at the dance, but he also danced with other girls in front of me. ON TOP OF THAT, his mom was a sponsor for the dance. I cried in the bathroom. His mom came in and said "Blake,* you're too pretty to cry over him. Stop crying, clean yourself up, and march right out there and tell him you're better than him and there are plenty of other fish in the sea." HIS MOM TOLD ME TO TELL HIM THAT. So I did. And he and his circle of friends laughed at me, and I was more upset, but I didn't let him see me cry anymore that night.

One of his best friends Floyd* was nice enough to dance with me for the remainder of the evening.

Floyd also continues in this story as well, so you'll get to hear more about Floyd.

So what were my firsts in 5th grade?

• First time the M word was thrown into the mix (marriage, eww it makes me shudder now)--his mom would tell my mom all the time, IN FRONT OF ME, that she wanted me and Noah to get married so we would have smart babies.


• First time my heart was broken, but it definitely wouldn't be the last...

My name is Blake*, and I'm telling you to never give your heart away at a young age because boys are dumb.

*all names have been changed to protect the innocent and not-so-innocent

Update on the boys in this entry:

Noah and I no longer ran around in the same circles past junior high. He stopped playing sports, and got into some recreational drug use in high school. The boy was pretty freakin' smart, but he wasted his intelligence and went to a local community college. He didn't finish school, and I believe he now works for his dad's construction business. It was seriously a waste of talent. THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULD NOT DO DRUGS!