I wrote a while back how surprised I was at how many people remember little about their adolescence, how they remember the facts of where they were etc but not the whole complicated extremes of being and becoming the person they are, the hormonal, emotional, roller-coaster of teenagerdom withs it's HIGH's and really LOW's! (I wondered if this is why society is so intolerant of teenagers, "YOU LOOK LIKE an adult (aside from the dress sense), BEHAVE LIKE ONE!") I was thinking though surely everyone remembers their first major crush, some may still even have scraps of the nail-bittingly bad poetry that it gave rise to. I guess girls, maturing quicker as they do, may handle the whole thing with some dignity intact! My blokey experience however is listening to achingly painful music and generally being pathetic in my doe eyed affections and wasting vast amounts of time just randomly walking near Welcombe Grove in the hope of "bumping into" the object of my doting devotion.
So fess up then? What do you remember?
And for bonus points, how can your experience be a useful reflection for youth work?
The band Chegal Guevara produced a great track that had the chorus,
"Oh I still know your number by heart
I don't know if it's love or if I'm smart
but I still know your number by heart"
(I still remember her phone number 22 years on)
My fave love poem was: Roses are Red, Violets are blue suger is sweet but salt isnt! It didnt really work in the pulling sense but did make me laugh!
i so remember this instance at the middle school dance where the girl i liked came up to me and told me that i couldn't read her signals that she was interested in me. i said, what, i'm in 7th grade, how am i supposed to know signals.. we dated as a couple for the rest of the weekend.
oh, it's funny how so many folks really do remember their childhood/adolescence, it's a shame, i love to laugh at my old antics.
I remember the embarrassment ALL too well! Helpful to my youth ministry?? Well cringingly yes as I ha da MAJOR crushon one of our youth leaders - it makes me really rather cautious!