Throwback Thursday: She's Not in His League

I grew up in a house that my father built. The great part of the house was it was down a dirt road in the county. Mrs. Cooper's farm was across the street. There weren't many houses on our road and few children. I was quite happy playing in the summer shadows, dancing and singing, playing for the neighboring goats, riding my bike up and down and all around.

I shared a bedroom with my sister until I was in maybe 8th grade. Sharing the room was more difficult for my sister than for me as I was the slob and she was the neat-nic. The fact my bed was closest to the door and she had to walk through my stuff to get to her side made it doubly hard for her, I would think. We had to clean our room once a week. I often swept stuff under my bed to make the process go faster. The best for her in this sharing space is that she got the window over her bed.

I have always felt I was a lucky girl that I lived on this dirt road--the adventures created around the fields and farmland and orange groves. I had friends a bit away from me, but close enough to ride my bike to their houses. I loved there were no sidewalks and few fences, just free land yards.

Our elementary school was built right as I entered first grade. It was a small school built out in the county. Just the right size for our little enclave of baby boomers. We were bused out to Ontario for junior high. Only some of us from Howard School went out there--miles away from our homes. Others went to Montclair. 

But it was high school that we all came together again. We joined all those kids who had been going to school together from the beginning.  We were the "new kids" to their "oh remember that party at Mary's house when we were 10" lives. It ain't no thang to me; I kinda get along with all sorts of friends from all sorts of backgrounds. 

 

But then I fell in love. Junior year. Football player and part of that group. We all fell in together, going to games, dating, the whole teenage thing. I was the Ad Man for the school. We would paint posters before the football games and post them all around the quad, cheering the team on. We would have poster parties at different friends' homes. Only once did we come to my house because it was so far away from the others' homes. But we had a blast at the poster parties.

Understand this: I was always afraid I would never find a husband because I couldn't roller skate. I know. I know. But see, Mom and Dad met at the roller skating rink and I thought that was how you found a husband. Oh sure, of course I didn't believe that by the time I was in high school, but there was always that niggling fear that I would never find a partner. Cause I was very tall. Cause I didn't go to school with all those others. Just cause I was a teenager.

It was not long after the Junior/Senior prom that one of my boyfriend's friends took me aside and told me that I just wasn't in my guy's league. I wasn't good enough for him. That I should just walk away.  I never told anyone what he had said to me, but it kinda fell into place. Country girl. City boy. And truth was it wasn't long after that little conversation that my boyfriend and I stopped going steady. My first heartbreak.

King Willem I,
first King of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

I had never thought about "leagues" before and truth be told, I rarely thought about "leagues" afterwards. Oh yes, one man I dated off-and-on for a few years I considered "out of my league," but he was like hard candy: you should just let it mellow but you have this overwhelming urge to crunch on occasion. Okay, that was a really bad analogy, but I know what I mean.

Looking back, perhaps a prince or king might have been out of my league. I mean the backgrounds were just too different and I never learned how to use 14 different pieces of silverware when eating dinner. And face it; I'd trip over that long cloak. But a statement from a rude teenage boy shouldn't have had much leverage. But it did.

After some years of taking abuse from a husband who thought I was just a simple country girl, I wised up. I started dating better men, good men. And frankly, by now I'm happily in a league of my own :) 

and so it goes
peace~~~