Wake Up and Smell the Bubble Wrap

So we're moving again.

As a kid, I went through eleven schools in the kindergarten-to-12th years, and I loved almost every one of them (there was just this one place that was an all-girls' disaster...you know, with the rampant desperation and the comparing of boob sizes. Puberty is a tough time). But I think the best time I had was at the last school I was in. I actually managed to spend 3 years there! And it was those all-important years from 15 to 17, so of course there was drama and intrigue and mayhem and men...all very Sidney Sheldon (God Bless his soul), but without the sex.

And, of course, there was the-object-of-affection . Said object was actually someone I knew this time (as opposed to his predecessors, Prince William and Nick Carter), and lord, sometimes I think back to how utterly clueless I was about such things and I want to bang my head against the wall. Oh, I managed to talk to him without stammering and stuttering (I think), but it would more or less remain at comparing English marks (how scintillating!). And, embarrassingly, I think I was rather obvious about the entire thing, you know, with the blushing and the hair-twirling and the gaggle-of-giggling-friends a few feet away. I was a reasonably attractive teenager, but gawd, so low on self-confidence, so back then all the innuendo-laced flirting that I now manage was pretty much out of the question. What I wouldn't give to have projected this calm, cool, worldly image instead of the weirdo I must actually have seemed like! But I guess something must have been in my favour, since I got my first (and second) kiss out of it...And look at that, I still have a goofy grin on my face when I think about it! I guess once a nerd, always a nerd.

I think the strange part with object-of-affection was that my relationship with him only really began after it ended. I remember (once we started talking again!) that I could finally talk to him without the what-is-he-thinking-about-me and the ooh-say-something-hilarious-so-you-can-hear-that-cute-laugh. And as I grew a little older and a lot less self-conscious and, amazingly, so much more comfortable within my own skin, it became easier and easier to talk to him about men and women and college and jobs and aspirations and moving-blues and everything else under the sun. So then he become one of those friends. You know, the kind where you can pick up the phone after six months and start yakking like you just hung up five minutes ago? Love that.

So last night when mom and I were looking at empty walls and stacked packing crates and indulging in our moving-time ritual of curling up in bed and popping the bubbles on leftover (or, well, stolen) bubble-wrap, she asked me what I hoped to get out of this move to Muscat. I gotta say, with the way things have worked out in the past, a little crush wouldn't hurt :)

Plus, it's been a long time. A veeery long time.