Middle school sex ed. taught abstinence (over protection and preparedness).
So high school offered only these choices:
a.) Square
b.) Slut
But college, brought to you by the letter O, was a teacher of experience.
And finally, I separated sexuality from shame.
I could tell you about the first time I was ever with a boy. He was 16 and I was 16 and we were foolishly, horribly, obliviously in love.
Or maybe only I was. After all, it’s hard to tell with 16-year-old boys.
But I’ll spare you that story as it’s anticlimactic (in more ways than one).
Life only gives us so many firsts. And often, those firsts don’t live up to our seen-it-on-YouTube, Instagram-filtered, hashtag-ridden expectations.
Which is why I never forget the ones that did.
Like the day I got my driver’s license. It was an unbearably sweaty Georgia-summer day. My dad and I drove to the DMV in dirt-road Villa Rica to avoid waiting in line at the more suburban locations near our home. And despite blowing past a stop sign toward the end of the test course, I managed to pass.
The first time I drove that cherry red ’96 Mustang with no adult riding shotgun, it felt like I’d just been born. It felt like freedom. I cruised through the fifteen minute route to my first lifeguarding gig—windows down, radio blaring Third Eye Blind—believing I was a brand new human being.
Or there’s the day I landed in Paris for the first time. The City of Light came with so many expectations. It was a movie for which the trailer was so good—too good—and you knew you’d only be left disappointed.
But I was not disappointed.
I turned 21 in France—eating fresh baked baguettes and cheeses with names I couldn’t pronounce and drinking cheap wine and gawking, wide-mouthed, starry-eyed, at the sparkling Eiffel Tower. Le Paris did not let me down.
Of course, there are the other kinds of firsts too: the first time I totaled a car (that same Mustang from sweet sixteen). The first time I flew alone (and managed, beyond all possibility, to actually board the wrong plane). The first time my heart was blown to bits (by the same boy from my aforementioned not-so-memorable first time).
Some of these were comical. Some devastating. Some embarrassingly legendary.
But all my first-timer mistakes were worth making. I learned something about me or life or choices or consequences. Definitely something about consequences.
So when it was time to drive again, I knew to make sure my foot was actually on the brake before turning into a parking space. When it was time to fly again, I knew to check that the plane at the gate was going to my intended destination. When it was time to love again, I made sure two hearts were ready—not just my own.
And it turns out that sometimes the second time is even better than the first.
My glazed eyes blink; the page stays blank.
I have no pointed answers.
I’m whittled out. Hollowed.
Forty-two words are far too few
To contain her wisdom, her truths.
Just as fifty-seven years were too few.
But that’s all Mom was given.
We used to offer Thanks
on a well-fed Thursday
in late November.
Encroached by big business
clamoring for profit,
feast turned to famine.
Now parents working extra shifts
(to afford merry surprises)
are trampled red
beneath the soles
of 1,000 thankless feet.
Did she whisper “our secret”
as hands began to roam?
Did she murmur “don’t worry”
as text lit up your phone?
Did she mouth into darkness
“don’t think of her at all”?
While frozen at our table,
I waited for your call.
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My mind, sharper than a hawk’s talon,
s t o p p e d
when you regurgitated betrayal.
(I just swallowed.)
My eyes didn’t blink
in disbelief.
They saw your many truths.
And instead of taking flight,
my heart–
both victim and traitor–
caged me still to you.
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Staring at her hands to avoid the jurors’ intrusive eyes, she spat out answers. Each word bitter and heavy on her tongue.
A guilty verdict would surely dig a needle in his arm. So she swallowed the truth and set herself free.
He waited for an hour, a painful hour. And during that painful hour, he reread the note in his mind 227 times. Two hundred and twenty-seven!
Meet me at Wal-Mart 2nite—school supplies aisle.
He agonized over it. Maybe he should have made it sound more like a question. Meet me at Wal-Mart 2nite? Maybe he should have said Target instead. Margret Ann’s family probably shops at Target.
He paced among the back-to-school clearance leftovers, willing her to show up. Margret Ann may not have said “yes” exactly, but she hadn’t said “no” either.
When he finally saw her bouncy red curls and eight-year-old swagger turn the corner by the spiral notebooks, he shoved the pink gel pens behind his back. Waiting until her red Converse with the rainbow laces were just inches from his flip flops, he presented them like a bouquet of fresh carnations.
These are for you.
Eight Years Later
He waited for an hour, a lingering hour. Because that’s how long it takes high school girls to get ready.
So even though she said Pick me up at 7:00, he sat with her parents through Wheel of Fortune AND Jeopardy.
Margret Ann’s parents weren’t quite sure what to make of sixteen-year-old Toby Malarky, frozen on their couch with the best posture they’d ever seen. His favorite shirt ironed crisp and tucked into his “nice” blue jeans. Hair slicked to one side, school-picture-day style. Cologne overdosed by about two and half pumps.
When Margret Ann finally came down the stairs, pink lips the color of those gel pens in his memory, all the air Toby held inside his whole body seemed to get vacuumed out in an instant.
(Still) Eight Years Later
He waited for an hour, an indecisive hour. Before texting her after that first date.
He’d heard his buddies say, Don’t call her for at least three days, Malarky. At LEAST three days.
But they didn’t say a damn thing about texting. So Toby wrote, revised, erased, and rewrote texts for 60 fat minutes before settling on one identical to his first draft.
2night was perfect.
U r perfect.
<3 Tobes
Margret Ann danced around her pink bedroom before flinging herself on the bed, giggling with glee.
Ur perfect 2. xoxo -MA
Two Years Later
He waited for an hour, a panicked hour.
Sweat ran down his face like condensation on a Coke bottle. He wiped it away with the cloth napkin every chance she looked away, but she wasn’t looking away enough. She hardly ever looked away.
Margret Ann prattled on about Yale or Georgetown or even NYU. Five acceptance letters had arrived just that week. Her freshly-painted pink fingernails flew through the air with every animated word.
Toby couldn’t focus on her excitement. He nodded and smiled and munched on the most expensive meal he hoped he’d ever have to pay for. But all he could think about was the ring in his pocket, the question on the tip of his tongue.
After one hour and four courses he cut her off mid-sentence and blurted it out.
Margret Ann, marry me.
Immediately, he wished he’d made it sound more like a question.
One Year Later
He waited for an hour, a terrifying hour. Smack-dab in the middle of First Presbyterian. Standing by the altar with two best friends by his side, Toby’s insides bubbled like a pot about to boil over.
At first they said she was just running late, but as minutes swelled into half-hours, he knew it was something else. He saw concern and pity beginning to fill the eyes of the guests.
Staring up at the rafters of that old sanctuary, Toby willed her once again to appear. With his mind racing and face growing hot and pink, Toby pulled his phone from his jacket pocket. His fingers flew over the keys; he knew what she needed to hear.
Margret Ann, you don’t have to do this if you’re not ready just yet.
I’ll wait for you as long as it takes.
<3 Tobes
Minutes passed. You could hear a pink gel pen drop in that airy church.
And then you could hear the soft buzz of a phone vibrating. Toby took a deep breath and looked at the text.
On my way! Sry I alwys keep u waiting. xoxo -MA
Toby just shook his head smiling.
No need to be sorry, he thought. I love every horrible minute I spend waiting on you.
A series of online events took place today that made my insides boil while simultaneously making me want to crawl into a hole.
In case you missed it, here’s a recap:
An anonymous hacker (not to be confused with an Anonymous hacker) breaks into iCloud and steals photos of celebrities. Unfortunate photos. Vulnerable photos. Nude photos.
Hacker then leaks them slowly throughout the day, one celebrity victim at a time.
American people go crazy.
Not crazy that someone would invade these people’s privacy, mind you. Not crazy that someone would take a photo that was never meant to be shown and share it with the small, friendly audience known as the Internet. No.
They go crazy to see them. To retweet them. To mock them. To make memes from them. To antagonize them. To criticize their bodies, their positions. To suggest what they’d be willing to do or not do sexually based on how they look in these images.
The nude photos blow up on Twitter. Everyone clawing from their keyboards to see them, critique them, share them, come up with the most hilarious captions for them.
No one thinks, maybe I shouldn’t take part in this. Maybe I shouldn’t encourage this. How would I feel if this was my wife or girlfriend or mom or sister or me? What would I do if something so private, so personal was broadcasted to the world without my consent? And then the world responded by making a mockery of it? By using it as the punch line for their jokes. As a tool to get a few follows.
We’re making fun of Ariana Grande for being too skinny, Kate Upton for being too curvy, Jennifer Lawrence for being too sexual.
We imagine that we’re entitled to pass judgments and make jokes because they’re celebrities and we’re just regular people–safely hidden behind our computer screens. It’s fair game, right?
Shame on all of us.
We are the same people who cannot possibly imagine why children get bullied in school. Why they get picked on until they reach a breaking point. Why those not even 10 years old are driven to suicide.
Where do kids today learn to be so mean?
My God, they learn it from us.
Beware of uninvited visitors, the slight slip of paper warned.
Sarah chuckled to herself: These fortunes keep getting weirder and weirder.
Staring out the open window, she crunched absently on the stale cookie,
never seeing the eight-legged enemy that tiptoed silently inside.
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