My Life in Letters – “D” is for Donny

Me and my ex-boyfriend

It’s hard to remember a time growing up when I didn’t have a crush. I was just that kind of girl. If you looked at me, I loved you. Which meant that I spent a great deal of my time in heartbreak because 9 times out of 10, well, actually more like 9.99 times out of 10 the crushee didn’t return the sentiment.

I remember my first crush, my first love. He wore purple socks, had perfect Chiclet gum teeth, and a voice that made my little girl heart beat out of my chest and I loved him more than any Barbie, more than any thing, I loved him.

His name was Donny. He never really knew me, but I knew him well. I watched him from afar and decided I would marry him one day because he had pretty brown hair and could sing songs about feelings I wanted to wear like a grownup. Feelings that wouldn’t really fit my 8 year old self, but I didn’t care because Donny understood “how a young heart really feels and why I love(d) (him) so.” I’m quite sure I played the scene out in my head over and over again as I fell asleep, his songs echoing in my hopeful mind.

It’s funny how anything’s possible in a heart that still believes in fairy tales, still believes in princes and Quixote-like devotion. I knew we would marry. I would find a way for him to know me. I would be his “Puppy Love“.

Sadly, that day never came.  I clearly remember lying in my bed one night looking at my poster of Donny Osmond, his big brown almond eyes looking out into my room that I shared with my brother in that sad little ramshackle house on Causton Bluff. The home where I could hear Lupo, the German Shepard who had crawled underneath the house and positioned himself just under the tub where I bathed, throwing up some bad chemical-laden grass or maybe a foul river rat.

It was in that house, in that bed with my brother sleeping across the room underneath a poster of his crush, Linda Rondstadt, who wore hot pants and roller skates with her perfect cupid bow lips, that I finally realized it would never happen. I would never marry Donny Osmond.

And it was in that bed, one night that I cried myself to sleep for the love I had decided was mine before I even had it. The love I had to let go before I had even known it. Without even knowing me, Donny Osmond had broken my heart.

Flash forward many, many, years, crushes, heartbreaks and wonderful husband, later and I find myself watching Dancing with the Stars rooting for my former crush. He looks happy and I’m glad, because I am too.

Without my crush on Donny I might never have felt the early flutterings of my heart. I really believe that since the heart is a muscle it needs to be worked out.  My crushes were nothing but workouts making me stronger and stronger – preparing me for the real Donny whose name just happened to be Warner.

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Like Father, Like Son

My sons are both incredibly handsome. They get that from their father. They get a good deal of other traits from their father too.

I remember in one of my very first Lamaze classes when I was pregnant with Jacob, we were all asked to tell what trait we hoped our child would inherit from our spouse. I was quick to say that I hoped my son would inherit his father’s long eyelashes. I think it stems from an insecurity that I have with my own puny flappers.

Anyway as fate would have it both Jacob and Nicholas got those spidery lashes that frame some pretty incredible brown doe eyes. Yep, they’ll get the beautiful babies with those peepers.

Both boys also have dimples like their father. Or not. You see, I sport some dimples of my own, just not on my face.

I’m just saying.

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