Welcome to Teen Week!
I kept a consistent diary from about age eight to 18. My late-teen entries are angsty and shallowly searching. The sixth through eighth grade entries, which I revisited at length last week, are essentially an exhaustive compendium of me and my friends’ crushes and boyfriends during that time (save for a very somber 9/11 entry, of course).
It turns out that much of my sixth grade year was spent obsessing over a classmate named Henry. He was new at our school that year, and he was a very cool skater boy. We had a whirlwind four-week-long romance, which involved a trip to the movie theater, a hand-holding date at the local skating rink, a heartfelt exchange of Valentine gifts, and a messy, public breakup during snack recess on the playground. You can learn about all the drama (and good lord, the drama! I had no idea I lived an entire season of Real Crushes at Green Street Elementary until I reread this shit) in the animated video above.
I texted Henry last week to see if he’d prefer that I bleep out his name. We’re older now, and living our own adult lives, but I loved that his response still felt appropriately teen:
He said it was fine. I thank him for being a good sport, and forgive him for breaking my sixth-grade heart.