Being 13😀: LOVE OR INFATUATION

Everybody loves love, or not... You might want to check out how these 13 year olds felt😌
Grace speaks:

Being 13 yea? I'm just gonna drop it like its hot yea? 😂😂 I had my first kiss 😌...calllmmmm dooowwwnnnn before you start awwning upandan like ambulance, it wasn't with the person i wanted😭...I have told this story before but I'll say it in details now. Fortunately i have very apt memories of how everything went down😌.

In high school, we had this Saturday lesson that wasn't compulsory but most of us used it as an opportunity to escape house chores, show off our mufti, bring phones to school (not like we hadn't been bringing during the week days though😏) and then for the boarders, it was an opportunity to use make up, wear ripped jeans ( our day wear was jeans and t-shirt according to your house color).

I was a day student at the time and mum had dropped me off at school that morning, i was alone in the class because for some reason other day students didn't come that day and well, day students aren't allowed in the hostel, so i just stayed there doing nothing.

You know how they say an idle man is the devil's workshop? Noooo...that day, being idle actually paid off😂😂...he ran into the class...yes he😂😂...we will call him baby boy no1...there's gonna be a lot more baby boys as we go on with the series...well back to baby boy1😂😌❤...he rushed into the class and i was startled. He apologized and pulled off the black top he was putting on, revealing his red day wear he had on beneath...apparently he had snuck out of school and had just successfully snuck back in, that's why he had rushed in like that....ooooouuu are you thinking what I'm thinking? �😏 #BADBOY 😀

Baby boy and i talked and i put on my smart hat and kept on bursting his brain😌, i sighted my mom's car from a distance, it was time to go home. He said he'd come look for me the next Saturday, in the same class and at the same time. I was excited for many reasons...i knew he liked me, he was a senior-two classes ahead, i was in ss1 and he was in ss3, he was dark skinned and handsome😩

Saturday came faster than i expected and my mum dropped me off at school as usual, i delayed a little and when i got to the class, he was already there. My heart sank into my stomach and i could hear the thump against my chest, it was so deafening, i feared i might need hearing aides after 😂💔🤦🏾

I was so nervous, i just wanted to run away but i didn't. I went inside and guess what? He wasn't alone🙄...his school son had come alone and he wouldn't leave, despite all the signs baby boy1 was obviously giving. He just stayed there and even suggested we play truth or dare...the effontery😭😩💔.

Anyways, baby boy1 obliged and you won't believe what happened next😑 this school son dared me to kiss him. Whaaattttt??? Are you mad??? How can i kiss you in front of my crush??? Hey God ooo😭😭😭Baby boy noticed how uncomfortable i was with the whole situation so he excused himself.

This young man came forward, smiling like he had won a trophy - MOMENT RUINER OF THE YEAR- i held my lips very tight together and he was just using his saliva to destroy my face🙄...after about 5 seconds baby boy1 came to the rescue😩...finally his school son decided to leave and baby boy apologized...such a gentle boy😩who am i not to forgive kwanu🤷🏽  He came very close and placed his hands on my lower back...i almost exploded of excitement. He was taller than i was, so much so i had to stand on my tip toe to wrap my hand round his neck. He kissed me. I kissed him back. Then we continued to kiss and then he stopped to tell me i was a good kisser😂😂😌, that i kissed too well for a first timer. All we did was kiss and kiss and kiss. His hands just stayed on my back, he wasn't in a hurry to get his hands all over my body, he just wanted to kiss me for as long as possible.

Time flew and soon it was time for me to leave. He made me promise not to tell anyone and so i did. Soon, going to the last floor to kiss baby boy1 on Saturdays became a ritual. With time, it wasn't just on Saturdays, ever during school hours, he'd send a junior student to call me or he'd walk past my class and I'd leave to go join him😂❤

He wrote notes to me, he bought me snacks during break and sent a junior student to give them to me, he always kept to time if we fixed a date and he called often during the holidays. I remember one night at exactly 1a.m, he had called to say "Grace, i just want to tell you that i miss you, i care about you and i love you" and he ended the call before i could say anything.

For once my heart never stopped to miss a beat when i heard his voice from a distance or perceived his cologne or when anybody mentioned his name. He treated me right and i loved it. I loved him. It wasn't infatuation because it didn't stop and my young heart felt some sort of peace. There was no sexual activity so this wasn't a case of lust.

At 13 i knew what it meant for the heart to beat for someone. The only sex education i had was, "don't all anybody to touch your private part so you will not get pregnant" and so the fact that he didn't even try to touch any part of my body that was private made me trust him even more. I became self conscious, taking extra caution while ironing my school uniform, constantly wearing fruity lipgloss cos he liked how it tasted and even started to wear my mum's cologne.

Dating baby boy1 made me a hopeless romantic even till today, he gave me a lot of attention, complimented me every time, uploaded that he loved me on his 2go status and never stopped writing this cute notes. I had immunity to punishments and i had peace. He had me smiling at every thought of him and every tear i shed all through the relationship was because i was laughing or because i missed him when he was away.

It was private yet public, like people knew we were together but nobody knew our business. Soon he was preparing for his senior WAEC and he didn't have time to sneak around with me anymore. I was so upset i walked to him when he was reading one day and broke up. I ran to our cozy library and lay on the rug behind the shelves and cried my eyes out.

He started to call me by my full name and even punished me the next day during assembly😂💔. We later got back together and our bliss continued until much later when he got into the university based on distance and all of that. We didn't end with a fight but my heart knew it was in love that whole time.

As young people, we really don't have specified differences between love and infatuation except that the latter wears off over time. The both could come with the same intensity so deep it will be difficult to decipher.

90% of the time it is better not to get emotionally attached at such a young age. Imagine baby boy1 had been a bad person to me or a pedophile or just an ignorant person who would want to use me to test run his sexuality...can't even think of what would have happened😩.

Guard your heart with all diligence dear reader and to the young ones, truth is, despite all the good baby boy1 was to me, he was still a distraction, i was a star student, still represented my school in competitions but he was bad influence. He didn't like school and so i didn't too. We were both really smart but took out diligence when it came to our studies. He taught me loyalty and we broke rules together. We were in love and that was all that mattered at the time.


At 13, love was defined by how much letters were written, how much attention was given and kisses, smooches, hugs and immunity from punishment 🙂...

KRYSTAL SPEAKS:

A wise man once said that if you have to beg for it then, are you sure it is love? If the butterflies in your tummy doesn’t last forever darling, best believe that you need to clear out the worms, or your spirit just needs new excitement because what you felt isn’t love.

I was already on my first boyfriend when I was 13. Well, not exactly but let me tell the whole story before talk about the other stuff.

So my parents had advised me yeah to be careful and treat all the boys like my brothers and friends but things ran out of hand pretty quickly which is why I would advise parents to narrate how these things happen to kids so they do not start feeling like they are going through a forbidden stage or something strange; it’s natural to feel that way, but every teenager needs guidance and a wise listening ear in their corner.

Back to my story dears, I was 12 and had just started ss1 at a new school when a few weeks later this really tall boy stepped into the class and took a seat without uttering a word of greeting to the teacher. He seemed pissed off and could not care less and the teacher, threw some shade about people tending to step on their brains when they get too tall.

I was the only person that found it funny and laughed loudly.
The rest of the class wondered if the guy and I had issues in the past life or something, but I laughed for no reason and in no time school was over.

We later got to know that the tall boy had anger issues and he slapped a senior without even knowing it. Trust secondary school seniors na! I think they later beat up the rude boy and the gist circulated that he was coming from Command Day Enugu. Umunne (my people) we didn’t really get to talk till one sports day.  He and the other science boys came upstairs to art class and we were all involved in this chit chat. He spoke about how he liked Nicki Minaj and in my mind I was like “see this small boy already checking for endowment oo”.

At this time, my rap game was at least 70 and being a huge Nicki fan, I dropped some lines from Superbass. This gave birth to a whole other conversation and before I knew it, a friendship was formed. We were always together talking, laughing, singing and rapping (dude had his rap game on point, plus I think throughout secondary school I was attracted to rappers), we were sha happy.

Then one day after a small quarrel during prep, someone tells me that he is calling me at the back of the school tank. I get there and he asks me to be his girlfriend; this my occasional shyness did not start today because I just said I’ll think about it (thanks to watching Disney, I had heard that line being used before) and I ran off.

I didn’t sleep well that night. So many thoughts in my head and well, I eventually agreed. I think he brought a packet a Schneider biros to school because he was my supplier (I was always forming if it’s not Schneider I will not use) so eventually our love graduated from Schneider pens to holding hands and talking.

The feeling of holding someone’s hand and checking your heart beat to be sure you were still in this world was surreal. Even when he played football and fell (I don’t know why o! but baba dey always get injuries for hand after matches), I knew because we would hold hands and like the motherly girlfriend/nurse/certified midwife that I was, I would start caring up and down, offering treatment and all.

He was a bit mature because he was two years older but the truth is, we were kids and what we had was so pure that when it ended, it broke my heart for a very long time in life. Getting involved emotionally at such a young age didn’t mess up my studies at all ( I guess I was lucky here), it messed up my emotions. The trauma of heartbreak at a young age never really allowed me get a better relationship. Even when I thought I had my shit together, the feeling that if I was so young and I still got cheated on, what was the guarantee that it won’t happen again kept haunting me.

The truth is, it was not his fault. We were all at the stage that needed huge guidance and emotional support and that is where the West’s will always differ because they handle these stages early by making their kids comfortable enough to talk about crushes and dating life. When things seem to go sour or they notice traits they are not comfortable with (because their child’s lover, friend, date or crush would visit home), they are able to put them on the right track and get them right. While those of us who feared to tell our parents suffered a lot.

My mum actually knew but what I got to find out later in life was that she never imagined it was that deep. She didn’t see her little girl growing so much love and affection for someone at such a young age. She didn’t even know that I may never have gotten over him, and she didn’t take it to be more than a close friendship or at best infatuation that would die a natural death without causing any trauma or becoming this deep. She never knew that it was beyond laughing at jokes and copying each other’s notes and not that she would kill me, I was just scared to open up and I regret it. Maybe if I did, things would have been explained differently to me and it would never have gotten to the heartbreak stage, the incessant crying, the gloominess, the carrying of such heavy thoughts at a young age, and all of that.

Dear reader, 13 is hard because you need to make life changing decisions at such a young age. The choice to cheat in high school exams then struggle to read throughout University because you didn’t imbibe the reading culture when you were supposed to, will be made. The choice to keep yourself focused and consistent in achieving your early goals will be made. The choice to know where you want to end up after high school will be made, and this is just the basic ones as there are others that will change your life too.

Turning 20 in a couple of months, I have seen how down to your spiritual life can shatter forever if you don’t navigate the roads of being 13 well.

I would never trade all that happiness and beautiful memories that boy gave me for anything in this world, but I would trade the heart breaks and the feeling that I was supposed to be responsible for another person’s emotional well being, for the innocence of just being friends, holding hands and studying together.

The problem with age is that some people did not get to experience some of these things at 13. Some are just experiencing it, or had to deal with it in the higher institution.

The line my darling between love and infatuation is so slim at first. Initially it seems almost impossible to differentiate, but you know the type of love were they call you useless and quickly shout “but God will not allow you to be useless in Jesus name”, the love that has made every sacrifice it could for you to live a better life, the love that cannot understand you or your generation perfectly and you can’t but feel helpless and try not to apportion blame because things suddenly changed from the old ways, that love is LOVE. Your parents are not just thrilled by the mere idea of your existence, they love you!

 There are friendships that have survived World War 1 to 5 and now they are at the stage where it is only pure love that binds while others would agree that all those people we thought we could die for, we were just living in the moment and allowing those butterflies to press the mumu button in our heads. Some people actually found real at 13 but it was not because they had to do mature stuff and carry emotions on their head like clay pot. It was because God had designed it to be; it was supposed to be part of their story from the onset so whether they “fell in love” or not, it might have made no difference. So many hearts are crushed, spirits broken and there are a lot of traumatized people because of teenage experiences that started or happened at 13. Others had these experiences younger than 13 or older but either ways, the past is past and the process of healing needs to begin or continue.
At this point, I would like to say that healing is not done in a day.

In my final year of high school (secondary school) ss3, I dated this guy. I didn’t ask him for permission to post this so I don’t know if it’s appropriate to post his name, but let’s call him JOHN. So I really liked John; then I thought I was in love AGAIN, we had designed our wedding card and how we were going to wed at St.  Bartholomew’s Anglican Church 2/2 Kubwa Abuja. Funny right, that wasn’t it. We decided to have two boys and two girls since I had just one brother and he had just one sister. I find all these details funny till date.

My darlings, I was happy. John was such a nice guy but low-key something always felt missing. I didn’t notice it then, but now that I am grown and I have thought about life, I realized that I was being toxic and unfair to John. I hadn’t gotten over the other guy I liked and without knowing, I was trying to use John to stay happy; that was exactly what I ended up doing for a while.

The problem now was that I ended up hurting myself, somebody’s son and a couple of other friends in the process. We never spoke till I was in third year in the university and seeing that he was the one who called, I want to assume that he had healed and he was now okay because the entire time I was blocked on all his social media platforms.

 I would never blame any of us but that is really what happens when the whole love and infatuation thing becomes an issue for people supposed to be reading Government and Chemistry or people preparing to enter higher institutions and pursue their dreams.

Imagine finding out that you were a toxic person when you were as young as 13? Imagine how devastating it could be and the other things it could trigger in your head?
A lot of things have changed over the years and before I turn 20 the lessons learnt have been numerous on setting boundaries in every sphere of life and keeping the main things, the main things. These experiences shaped me so I am no longer ashamed to talk about them, my healing process and my growth from that time till now.

I still talk with the two guys in this story (come on!!! they were my babies at one point in time haqqq) and we would remember these tales and laugh.
 I am hoping and praying to God that even 30 year olds understand why emotions and matters of the heart do not respect age, achievements or maturity. They will mess you up! If not handled correctly, and I am so glad to share this part of my under 20 experience.

Spiritual healing and growth is highly essential and should not be overlooked. God can help you recover from anything and give you the strength to move on and be happy. There could be teary days, long nights, flashback moments that could make you cringe, but best believe that you will be fine (if you are not already fine).

NOW!!! 
If you have been able to read what my system has tagged 4 pages, you are doing great sweetie and I hope you didn’t just laugh, but you learnt from my stories and you’d pass them on so we can end the chain of young ones getting their hearts crushed and carrying so much weight (EMOTIONALLY IN THIS CASE) on the tiny shoulders they are supposed to lend each other before football games, spelling bees, debate competitions, mathematics competitions, Cowbell-pedia, volleyball and all the great things they can achieve together.

Thank you!