Youth Notes

I don't know how to define youth, starting from the age of 14 when I can no longer celebrate Children's Day?Or is it calculated from the day of menarche?Or count from the first "love"?Or just count it from the moment the penis starts to grow painful little nodules?

I remember all these days, especially my first "love".

I don't know if it's called love, or just call it a process of children playing house?I don't know if my love for the little boy sitting in front of me at 11 years old counts as love.

I was born in the 70s of the last century.A society that has experienced poverty, suffering, isolation, change, reform, turmoil, and prosperity.My father was a state cadre and served as the party secretary of a district in our county.When I was in the fifth grade of elementary school, that is, when I was 11 years old, my older sister was studying in a key middle school in the county. I left my mother and younger sister who were still farming in my hometown, and my younger brother who was not yet six years old went to my father. Study at work.There, I met him, the guy sitting in front of me who was a few months younger than me.For a while, he often invited a classmate to come to my house—my father’s single dormitory with two single beds and a desk.I remember him always laughing, always telling jokes.This is so different from the boys I used to know. Those boys never smiled at me. They would only slap each other with bad words.

For the first time in my life I missed someone like this.I always fantasize about running into him on the way to school.I began to often go to the house of a classmate who was not a good friend, because his father and her mother were colleagues, maybe he would go to his father's unit to play?I went to a friend's house of my father's every now and then, because the road must pass through his house.

For the first time in my life, I incorporated my longing into my singing. At that time, I was singing every day, and there was always one person in those songs, only one person.I sang when I was alone, but kept silent when I was with my classmates.

One day, I picked up a small transparent stone, which I thought was a pure and beautiful crystal stone.I washed and washed it, rubbed it and rubbed it, and finally wrapped it in paper and slipped it into "my" little boy's desk.I blushed and waited for my secret to be discovered by him.In the end, I "throw it with papaya", and he rewarded me with "Qiongju". He used his little toe to hold a small paper ball and stuffed it into my little toe.So, I let a pen "accidentally" drop to the ground, and when picking up the pen, I "picked up" the small paper balls together.I grabbed the little paper ball and ran to a flower garden in the school. What I unfolded in my palm was a pair of copper peach keychains connected together. There was also a line written on the paper. I don’t remember what I wrote, but I just remember I tore the paper into very small pieces and buried them in the soil of the flowerbed.

I finally have our "token of love", from now on I am his and he is mine, I think.So I got jealous of the little girl sitting next to him.Because when she was receiving an award, she hurried up to the podium before he returned to her seat, and ended up bumping into him chest to chest and face to face, which attracted the laughter of the whole class and the head teacher. And the laughter of the two of them.I concluded that that nasty innocent and smart girl must have done it on purpose, and she could no longer be my good friend.

I carefully guard my secrets, and carefully enjoy the happiness my secrets bring me.It is a treasure and belongs only to me.Only if it belongs to me can it be happy forever.So when I returned home to the countryside after primary school, I learned to lie.My mother asked me: Why do you always sing a song repeatedly, and sing it all day long?I said, that song is a new one, and the head teacher taught it in person before the holiday, so we should learn it hard.An aunt in the village joked when we were working together: Is it fun to go there to study?Have you found a boyfriend yet?I said shyly: No.She said: Look, your face is red, isn't it from the front and back?I thought at the time, why are adults so powerful and terrifying, and I immediately saw it in my heart.No, believe it or not.I said it seriously, but didn't dare to look her in the eyes.

I dare not tell anyone, for fear that my happiness will disappear immediately.I'm afraid that I will soon become a shameless girl.

Before my fifth grade, I was bullied by countless boys, spreading rumors, cursing, and beating them. They said that girls who love boys are cheap, lewd, or demons.There are many rumors around me about women who have tragic endings because of being "cheap", "prostitute" and "demon": a woman went crazy to steal a man, was caught and beaten, and the woman went crazy; a husband lived in Nanyang A woman went to steal a man, but was driven away, and her natal family had no face to return, so she wandered around and finally starved to death; The belly grew big without getting married, and as a result, everyone in the entire township and district knew about it, and the girl threw herself into the river and died...

I don't know what "stealing a man" means, and I don't know how my belly got bigger. I only vaguely know that it has something to do with "loving men".I have been thinking about those women, thinking about those poor miserable women.

Of course I can't be that kind of woman.

So I carefully guarded my secret, and thought sweetly in my heart: Yes, we are in front and back, and we are in love.

That pair of peaches stayed with me for two years, and I looked at them, kissed them, and kissed them every night.Then I lay in bed and dreamed: When we grow up, get married and have children, our child will be named "Jingtao".I never understood, how did I do this?The movies I watch are all about wars, and the comic books I read are basically about wars. No one has discussed love with me.Did those boys who spread rumors all day long and those girls who whispered mysteriously taught me?Are those stories that circulated in the villages and alleys taught me?However, what they said was so dirty and vulgar, why do I feel so beautiful and happy?

My first "love" died at the age of 13, when we were in the second year of junior high school together in the county's key middle school.Because my grades have taken a big step back, because "mine" is not "mine", he hasn't paid attention to me since he gave me peaches, and he always doesn't respond to my "expressions of love", And my expression is very easy to cause a reaction: every time I see a good book, I will buy two and give one to him.

He didn't respond.Not a thank you, not even a second look.So I'm not "his" anymore.To my surprise, I was not sad at all for his "indifference" and "negative feelings", not even the slightest bit of sadness.

That's it, it's over.

Is this "love"?Probably not.Is this "youth"?Probably not.So what is youth?