THE VAULT: ISSUE #1

so remember when i said i might start pulling things out from the vault for your viewing pleasure (and indulging my cancerian-like tendencies toward galloping down memory lane)?

so as the 27th is the 10th anniversary of my first date with my ex-husband, david, i thought i may as well bust out this little gem.

it was the first note i ever received from a boy. my first boyfriend, who was also named david. (i decided when i was 11 that my husband's name would be david. it never ceases to amaze me when Fate actually listens. interesting that i never managed to declare the name of my second husband. thoughts, anyone?)

anyway. i received this note in december of 6th grade. it was monumental. he'd thrown it into my locker, and it took me a week or so to find it. and i mean, WOW. by 6th-grade standards, he may as well have walked up to me in the hallway, gotten down on one knee and proposed, given all he professed in this oh-so-poetic note, pictured below.

[now, before i show you this picture, i should mention something. and that is that the amazingly awesome camera my sister bought me for my 30th birthday maybe fell victim to breezy elegance on halloween, and maybe that is why you have not seen pictures since. maybe. because maybe there is no longer a functioning view finder, so the only way i can take pictures is to um, "guess" at what the picture might look like. this results in less-than-optimal images. but now that i have confessed this, i will start posting pictures again, they will just be fuzzy and the composition will be a bit...off.]

[i had to take 12 pictures of this note before i found one that was legible.]

so without further ado:



(click for larger!)

and here are my thoughts on this, nearly 20 years later...

Dear Kristy,

already we have correct punctuation AND correct spelling of my name. this is more than i have come to expect from most adult males.

I've heard you like me.

given that we were 11, this first sentence was SHOCKING and TERRIFYING. i remember thinking, "OH MY GOD! HE HATES ME!! WHO TOLD HIM I LIKED HIM!?!? I AM GOING TO DIE!!!"

If it's true, tell me. I won't get mad, I promise.

um, won't get mad? i remember thinking this odd. i mean, i didn't want him to hate me or think me a loser, but why would he be MAD at me liking him? what was THAT about?

If it's true, it's actually nice to know that someone with beauty and brains like you likes me, if that's true.

that's three "if it's true"s. still, what a compliment, huh? "beauty and brains." that was pretty heavy for 6th grade. plus with the grammar! i was in love.

I would really like to get to know [spot].

i could only assume he meant to write "you" there but got a little overzealous. i found it endearing.

well, sort of endearing. sort of annyoing. but what can i say. editors are born, people.

I hope you will like to get to know me too.

correct spelling of "too." and didja notice that he said "will" and not "would." confident!

Don't tell any of your friends about this,

um. i repeat, i was 11. i am not sure i even made it to the end of the note before sharing it with at least 4 others.

I wrote a letter to someone when I was in fourth grade and everyone knew about it the next day.

not maybe the best closer. i mean, he was basically saying that he's been writing notes to girls with "beauty and brains" for two years. still, i understood his concern. i tried to be discreet with the 187 girls i told.

Yours truly

ooh, CURSIVE WRITING!

Dave S.

the boy i did, indeed, have a crush on. is that hot or what!?

anyway, there it is: the note from my first "official" boyfriend. i wrote him a note in response, and eventually -- eventually, after agonizing note-writing and eventual phone calls -- we started "going out."

in fact, we made it as "a couple" (which mostly meant talking on the phone and occassionally sitting next to each other at parties where, after maybe 3 or so hours, a kiss might actually happen) for the rest of the school year, but not through our respective summers away at camp.

throughout the rest of middle school, we were something of an on-again/off-again couple. more off than on. we drove each other crazy. it was, as much as it could be, very maddy and david.

if you know what i mean.

then, in the first week of high school, i wrote a story about us (not naming names) and read it to my high school english class. i thought it would be sweet and sort of nostalgic, even then.

he, on the other hand, found it mortifying. and he never spoke to me again.*





*actually, that's not true. one of his best friends in middle school, someone i knew as well, killed himself two years after we graduated high school. dave ended up in front of me in line at the wake. while in line, i noticed that he had something on his jacket shoulder and i brushed it off without thinking. he turned to me and said, "thank you."