At Five…My friendships with girls were different. They clung to me more like a partner than friend. We would play mommies and daddies and somehow I would always be the daddy. I never volunteered but it felt weird any other way. It was this unspoken understanding that I was somehow different but it was okay. I remember one of my first friends. She was a cute little brown girl with a big puffy ponytail. She would always save me a seat on the carpet so we could watch Sesame Street after lunch in Ms. Asberry’s class. I would sit indian style and she would naturally sit in front of me indian style too. By the time SS would come on she would be leaning back in my lap. Then she would take my arms and put them around her. It was the most natural thing and we sat like that everyday. She would also want to always hold hands. She would ask me to get her bag from the top shelf even though we were the same height. And I always did. During the holidays we had to make Christmas cards for our families. She made me one and wrote “to my love friend.” The teacher saw the car and threw it away and made her make another card. I remember her crying about it. I made her a card so she would feel better. I made sure that my card did not contain of the word love in it. Anyway, we were way too young to even think about anything sexual but our relationship was not just friends. Sounds crazy but it was like we both knew but at the same time we did not know.
