My parents tell a story, of my first crush.

Natassia. She lived around the corner from us.

In elementary school, my favorite subjects were math and science and I was good at them. Yet somehow, in the spring of fourth grade, every day while working on my homework, I would completely loose my ability to complete even the simplest equations. I would take forever to finish a single problem. Two time six is fifteen?

And then one day, the story goes, my parents figured it out: every afternoon Nicole and her family take a walk and they walk past our house. Mom, dad, brother, sister, dog, and her… Natassia.

And that was it. Goodbye critical thought for the next 45 minutes.

She was a friend: we rode the bus together, played together, invited each other for parties or swimming in her family pool or running around in my big backyard. But perhaps she was something more: my first crush?

One day, she wrote me a note “Do you like me? Circle yes or no.”

I didn’t know what to do. Of course I liked her. But did she mean something else? Something deeper? How did I feel about that? I didn’t know. I don’t know.

My parents, always helpful, suggested I not be bounded by either “yes” or “no” and write in my own answer (an early lesson in smashing binaries!). That’s what I did. We stayed friends until she moved away, always teetering on the edge between friends and something more.

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Here’s a story that’s never been told.

In fourth grade, I met another friend: David. We met at Patrick’s birthday party. He was fun. I remember coming home and telling my mom I’d met someone new and wanted to be his friend. She coached me through setting up a playdate.  We became friends that year and stayed friends throughout the remainder of elementary school and into middle school (until he moved away too).

I remember one night we got into a “fight” during a sleepover spraying air freshener at each other. Dodging behind beds, and couches, and doorways. My room reeked for days. We sprayed so much that there was a spot on my wall next to the door where a shot had misfired. For (what in my memory seems like) months, I remember looking at that spot as I’d walk out of my room and smile—remembering David. Touching the spot as I walked past and smiling.

Did I make a new friend that day at Patrick’s birthday party or did I develop a crush? The thought never crossed my mind–I didn’t even know I had the option of liking David. Liking him in the same way that Natassia liked me. In the same way I was supposed to like Natassia back. I don’t know if he was just a friend or if I had a schoolboy crush on him.

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Here’s the first crush I wish I had: I was able to get dumbstruck when Natassia rode her bike past my house and I was able to get excited about meeting Paul for the first time. Where the family story we tell could just as easily be about David as it is about Natassia.

I want a world where we don’t have to come out at all because we aren’t hidden away to begin with, I want a world where we just are.

We build that world, one day at a time, but stepping into our truths, sharing ourselves with others, and creating a life that is fucking fantastic. I want that for you, too.