MY YEARS AS A TEENAGER

I just graduated from the 8th grade and would be going to high school in the fall. I will admit that I had two reasons for going to high school:  

1.  I went to socialize and
2.  I went knowing I would graduate and education is the only thing that cannot be taken from you. 

I graduated mainly because everyone said I would not do it. There were four siblings before me and I was the first and only to graduate from high school. I would have gone on to college but my parents could not afford it. I dreamed to be a designer of clothes or a dental assistant. But instead got married and raised a family. And that is the thing I am most proud of.

I started off the high school with my very best friend NS and we are still friends. We dressed alike that first day and shared a locker. The seniors came around selling tickets for the elevator.  Our school was four stories high and of course I bought one. It was only $.25 and a lot of my friends bought tickets, too. It wasn’t until I had to change classes, I was on the first floor and had to go to the 4^th, that I find out there were no elevators in the building. I was mad but it was my own fault.

My freshman year I met my wonderful husband. I went to Teen Town, a well-chaperoned dance. We would have a DJ or a band. And it was from 7-10 pm on Saturday nights. But I could not go unless I had my chores done and I had to have a ride to get there and get home. My dad took me a couple of times. It was for high school kids only. I finally learned to get my chores done and find a ride before I would even ask to go. I don’t think I sat out any dances. The guys would ask the girls to dance. Then once a night the girls had to ask a guy to dance. By that time I had my eye on this one guy. He was very skinny, not good looking, but I liked the way he danced. He never asked me to dance the rest of the night.

So the next week I could hardly wait for Saturday to come I got there and kept looking for him.  No, I didn’t even know his name. He got there and when it was the girls asking the guys to dance I went up and ask him to dance again. We did and then he asked me to dance a couple of more times that night. But after every dance he would go over to the side with the boys and I went back and sat with my friends. That’s when I fell in love. And it grew. You know how it is.  You get chills when you look into each other’s eyes, chills when he holds your hand, and that first kiss is out of this world. There is a lot more as I went through my years as a teenager.

To be continued