7—1961 CAPTAIN CRUSH Part 3

  Having absorbed a revelation, mid-story, let’s review just a bit about Captain Crush before going forward—if not for your sake then for mine—

... That doesn’t mean that after Joseph I’d never swooned over a boy, because of course I had.  One in particular.  He had the bluest eyes, the darkest hair, and an authentic athletic swagger that magnetized my attention while scaring me so silly as to shyly swallow my smile and lower my lashes whenever he'd sauntered past my desk toward his own.  Blue eyes, dark hair, male swagger—a unique combination of traits, considering the quartet of crushes who’d come before.

Another attractive feature to me?  Captain Crush earned top grades, conveying self-confident smarts, which translated into leadership skills—he was all over student government—making him another authority figure, so to speak.  Unfortunately, Captain Dreamboat, who'd lettered in football and baseball, had no clue I was alive.  As to winning his attention by batting my lashes while flashing a sparkling, flirtatious smile? No way! Not me! Too shy of exposing any emotion offering a hint of erotica burning hotly inside me that might catch his eye.

Though we’d shared a class, senior year, my secret crush seemed so above my social station that my eyes never failed to lower, reverentially, each time he’d swagger down the aisle, his body passing so close to mine as to make my heart race with such a rush as to cause me to catch my breath and blush.  Truthfully had he ataken note of me, not much would have happened, anyway.  Why?  Because history repeats itself, and as soon as any teen aged guy had closed in on the kiss, or tried to fondle me or pulled my body against his own, fear of any sexual contact flaring up blew out my flame as fast as my body froze up.

Since I was full of mischief when feeling secure, it makes sense that I had lots of second and third dates; however, no one ever got past first base, so none of those guys transitioned into boyfriends.  Makes sense that I’d no clue why not, because in the absence of self awareness I'd remained blind to this fact:  The hotter I’d felt about a guy, the colder I'd reacted, so rather than flirting and cuddling closer, I'd clam up and ice up—until we'd said good night, and not until my front door had closed behind me was my sense of personal safety regained.

Unawaredly, I'd repeated my 'first kiss' experience with Joseph, time and again, with one difference—I didn’t beat my dates round the head, because well, that hadn’t worked very well for me, first time around.

Each time a boy, who’d literally been iced out and pushed away, stopped calling, my spirit felt sadly rejected, because I’d not realized that they’d felt rejected—by me.  So even if Captain Crush, with whom I’d have given anything to cozy up, had noticed me, I’d have lowered my lashes while turning away, blushing furiously, because hiding my impassioned reaction—from myself—was my defense system's way of denying all conscious awareness of sexual chemistry that his nearness stirred into action.

Throughout high school, an ostrich-like sense of invisibility served as my trusty shield.  On the other hand, any flirtatious guy, who’d for the most part acted like my best bud, received a buoyantly bubbly, sunnily funny, mighty sassy string of replies unless a best bud’s eye suddenly smoldered with erotic desire—startling my sassy side to switch off, exposing a scared little bunny, who'd hopped behind a solid wall of shyness, quick as a wink.

In recent years, several ‘best buds’ approached me at our high school reunion.  Upon hearing more than one admit to having crushed secretly on me, I was shocked beyond belief.  So much innuendo is missed as ostriches we all tend to be to some degree.  Believing this true across the board, I work at growing more mindful, every day.  Today, whatever I feel for you will be openly revealed by reaching out in some heartfelt, deeply meaningful way.  Why?  Because clarity, concerning reality, has grown deeply significant to me.

So what changed when I met Will, during winter break of my senior year?  He was the first guy I'd ever dated who didn’t scare me into icy retreat.  Will was so nice that he and Annie seemed as alike as two peas in a pod.  Will gave me no reason to scurry away, scared as a rabbit, seeking safe haven in which to hide my erotic reactions ... from myself.

While other guys were quick to make moves on me, Will was so respectful that I felt SAFE, not only in his presence but in his arms—so safe as to date him steadily for nine months—the length of a pregnancy, no less. 

No matter how consistently I’d resist his advances, he’d call and embrace me tenderly, again.  And that was good.  However as good as feeling SAFE may have felt, the fact that Will proved ‘nice, respectful and offered good, clean fun’ proved not enough to hold my attention, over the long run.  Why not?  Well, though I’d feared guys who’d felt so horny as to stiffen, causing my personality to freeze up like a popsicle on a stick, some natural instinct in need of spice inspired me to crave more than nice—and here’s why I believe that’s true:  Those first five crushes, each of whom had mesmerized my mind, thus magnetizing my attention, had been high spirited, authoritative guys, who’d challenged me, mentally, to stretch past narrow, fear-based comfort zones—suggesting why my spirit longed to engage with spice as well as nice.

Despite fearing my erotic reactions, I’d needed to rub up against sexual spice that matched my own, no matter how deeply repressed my passionate nature proved to be.  Today, I’ve identified 'that spice', which I'd subconsciously craved, as male virility—why?  Because once raw virility calls out to repressed feminine passion—watch out!  Set a charge to TNT and in less time than it takes for sparks to fly free of subconscious restraint, all connection to passive shyness sees denial’s wall explode!

If asked, today, where my thinking process was messed up as a teen, I’d reply:  During dating years, I’d thought to be afraid of whatever those spicy guys had meant to do to me.  Today, I know that my flash frozen state on a date was actually highlighting my inability to distinguish anxiety from excitement springing forth instinctively from a well within me in which unidentified layers of sexual tension had remained so tightly coiled, repressed and unexpressed that, one day, when, caught utterly unaware, repression unhooked its quick spring release, leaving no one feeling more shocked to see my newly unrestrained libido spring into action—like a Jack-in-the-box making up for lost time—as proper, straight-laced, 47 year old conventional me craved interaction as never before!

Think to know your emotional self, through and through?  Think again, my friends, because, upon diving ever more deeply into your subconscious, your intuition, like mine, may touch upon an instinctive spring release that exists within us all ...

Ever since that time of mid-life revelation, I've come to see how often intuition prods me to discover subconscious fears, resulting in narrow mind sets, which had blocked me from exploring and enjoying a woman’s natural erotic desires.  Thank goodness, I've come to understand how traumatizing experiences, early on, had caused specific aspects of my life to grow to be a puzzlement to me … until fate stepped in, causing an earthquake-like shift to take place inside my mind set, body and spirit during my 48th year.  And as personal experience suggests my brain to be my body's most repressed or impassioned sex organ, today's string of insights is certainly in keeping with that which I've read as being scientifically factual.

Amazing how we each think to know what we fear or what angers us or what we feel for each other until layers of defensive denial are peeled away, revealing honest emotion, repressed at our core.  So sad to note that in the absence of self awareness, denial denies us access to delve so deeply into our psyches as to figure out our hang ups, and if we can't recognize the source of our hang ups then instead of offering each other clarity—confusion reigns supreme—indefinitely, causing us to play games that mess with our own hearts as well as with the hearts of those we love or fear or treat with contemptuous disrespect, more often than we consciously know.

Today, as strings of insight, concerning the importance of clarity, continue to march out of the depths of my mind, one truth following another, I've come to see how unmet needs, laced with fear, cause my think tank to feel like a gerbil in a cage on a wheel, running in circles, getting nowhere fast.

As a teen, I’d thought to fear hot male hands, which had been warded off by my Ice Queen's matched set of trusty elbows whenever my stiffened body language, stating, “No!” had been ignored in dark movie theaters or parked cars, followed by chastely fending off more than a brief goodnight kiss at my front door.

As a budding young woman, I’d no clue that the sexual arousal I’d feared most had been my own.  I remember thinking … God!—Why can’t we just go out and have fun?  What’s wrong with guys, anyway?  Why can’t they think about anything other than sports, cars and sex—sex—sex!  Never dawned on me to ask if anything was amiss within my thought process, concerning my libido's passivity, until recent years …

Why not?  I was raised before The Pill, Women’s Lib and The Sexual Revolution.

Over most of my life, I'd believed my resistance to male ardor had been due to societal protocol coinciding with traditional values imparted at home.  Not until recent years did the haunting existence of that dark, experiential mystery, which had repressed my natural urge to lock lips with a guy, emerge from one unzipped pocket within my subconscious, and along with this darkly looming awareness came clarity as to why I’d ‘felt’ marked as prey each time male desire closed in on me.  Though the shadowy nature of this darkly cloudy experience had grabbed hold of my mind before high school, that story, buried within a foggy part of my mind, has not yet emerged from its subconscious hideaway with succinct clarity to be told.

During high school, my darkened mind set, which had marked me as prey, was subconscious in nature, meaning that I’d no conscious clue as to why one of my dates, who’d somehow managed to roll on top of me while we were making out, had dropped a confusing comment into my lap after kissing me good night—or should I say—after kissing me off at my front door—and that story, along with others concerning the flash-frozen state of my erotic reactions, will, most likely, appear on your screen before tales of my college days are withdrawn from my memory bank … on the other hand, there’s no telling where our storyteller’s intuitive powers will take us next ...

🙋🏻‍♀️Annie