Dating Young Almost Ruined My Life

This is a story of a thousand of emotions. You will feel everything, then you will feel nothing, sometimes you won’t understand it, and isn’t that the whole idea of life. This is a story of how dating young almost destroyed my life. This is a story of how decisions I made more than five years ago still haunt me. This is a story of a naïve thirteen-year old’s decisions. This is a story of how I am a heartless twenty-year-old. Well, not really. I could never be heartless no matter how much I tried to be. I guess that just isn’t me. I am Amor, meaning love and maybe, just maybe I am a product of my parents’ love because that is what they chose to name me.   I was always a reserved child, always by myself and I never liked complaining much. Being raised by my father, Michael, on his own was enough of a burden. My dad was my best friend and definitely the only person I trusted to talk to about anything. I wouldn’t necessarily say that my mother, Tracey, wasn’t in my life, because she was. However, her career was just too important for her to give up for the whole domestic life situation and I was okay with that. I had a tribe of aunts, cousins, helpers and neighbours to help raise me. I didn’t know that this would have an effect in my life however.   My dad was great, always trying his best to take care of a hardly six-year-old kid. Fortunately, I was a quiet kid, always minding my own business. I had no friends whatsoever so all I did was study which made me a straight A student. My dad provided for most of my needs from his combi and taxi business. Everything else he couldn’t afford was paid for by my mum. One thing I never understood as a kid was why my parents had separate homes, in fact my mum worked over 12 hours from where we stayed for as long as I could remember. I always wondered how they made their marriage work from such distances. When I got into my own relationships I realized that I prefer long distance relationships too because for as long as I could remember, that was all I knew. That was what I thought love was. It’s true that our parents’ decisions always have the most effect on us.   All my primary school years were so insignificant. I saw my mother once every couple of months. I had a couple of friends, in fact, friends came and went. I stayed in the same school throughout most of my primary school days. When I was 12 and in grade 7 (the last year of my primary school), I got my periods for the first time. I was traumatized by the experience to say the least. I mean I had learnt about the whole menstruation fiasco in grade 5 but learning about it and actually experiencing it were two different things. As I said, I stayed with my dad. And at the time we lived with Melanie, who was my mother’s little sister. I remember that fateful morning, I woke up and took a bath and I noticed some blood flowing with the water. I thought I had an injury of some sort until it hit that I was menstruating. I didn’t want to tell anyone but I also had no pads or tampons, so I had to tell my aunt. Unfortunately, she was pregnant so she had none of those and I had to go to school like that and eventually I was able to ask a friend for some when I got there.   Everything else was just normal the rest of the day, I felt no different. And when I got back from school, I found a message from my mother who basically told me I was I woman now and ask that emotional crap I had no interest in. My mother had moved to a different country the year before so that she could get her Bachelor Degree. I was without a mother for two years already and I had two more to go before she was done. That year, I completed my primary school in October. I felt some relieve because I just didn’t enjoy the whole experience. I was getting bullied and it ruined my self-esteem in many ways than one but I had no one to talk to. I couldn’t tell my dad; he wouldn’t understand or at least that’s what I thought. Kids were always mean to me and now I realize that it is just how it is… someone has to get bullied sometime. I didn’t like it but there was nothing I could do about it.   Mid November, the bad news came. Out of nowhere. The bad news hit hard. Unexpectedly. My mother’s younger sister, Sandile, had passed away. Not the one I stayed with but a different one. My mother is the oldest of eight, with two brothers and five sisters. The third born was the one who passed and it was devastating, I could never forget the day she passed or the day she was buried. She was my favourite. Always bought me clothes. I still remember her smile years after. I was young but not so young that I could ever forget her. And I am glad she lives on through the two beautiful sons she left; Ruan and Ryan. I feel like I have two little brothers who I try to protect at all costs. I saw my mother at the funeral for the first time in two years and she was just a stranger to me and I was okay with that because I never knew her anyway. All I knew was her names, her date of birth, her phone number, her favourite colour and her favourite drink. She loved purple and her favourite drink was litchi. I knew just as much as the next person did. And that’s okay. After the funeral, I stayed at my maternal grandparents’ place because it just felt right. I missed them and I wanted to feel loved. After all, that’s where I was raised from when I was just a month old until I was five years old when my dad came to get me. And staying there must have been just the worst decision I have ever made. And also the bet one. You will see why…   First you must understand something. My parents overcompensated in basically everything. I would like to think its guilt of some sort. In fact, this still happens till this day. I got my first phone when I was just 9-year-old. The logic behind that was I had to talk to my mother since she stayed someplace else. By the time I was thirteen (where we are now in this story), I was on my fifth phone. I kept losing the damn things and my parents never shouted at me. They just bought new ones and well, that was their parenting skills. I was even allowed to join social media when I was ten. My mother’s brother had a wife and on the December following the funeral she decided to bring over one of her late sister’s children to the home village. And that is where the trouble began. He was an older boy of course and that is when I realized how much I really loved older boys. One thing for sure, I had never dated anyone before. In fact, I was never really interested in the whole notion when I was still in primary school. A lot of my friends had already had their first boyfriends, their first crush, their first kiss but not me. And I didn’t think it was going to happen anytime soon, that was until I saw him...   It was a little before Christmas day. I had just turned thirteen by the way which I consider too young to even be thinking about boys. One day, he walked into our yard and simultaneously walked into my heart. I know that probably sounds too cheesy and too dumb but that is the truth. He made me blush without even altering a word. I still think back to when he walked in, in fact I can effortlessly think back and be in that moment again. I can still remember his smile and the way he walked and talked. I do not remember the trivial events like what he wore or what he first said to me but I could never forget his scent. His name was Innocent and I remember I was so shy to talk to him but eventually I did. We have a large family so there was always people around us so we never got the chance to talk in private but I knew I loved him. I had never loved anyone before but with him I just knew. And when he left I was a little broken. I remember kissing his cheek and telling him that we should keep in contact. I knew it was wrong, very wrong because he was eighteen and I was just thirteen. He was also my cousins’ uncle and even though we were not blood relatives, we still shared some family and that just made everything mire difficult.   When I returned back to the city in January, my parents had enrolled me to the high school in the same primary school I had attended and I did not like the idea because I felt I deserved some change but as always, parents know best, right? That May, I got my first boyfriend. Innocent had not gotten in contact with me even though I had given him all my contact information so I figured he forgot all about me and I just felt a boyfriend was all I needed to get my mind and attention off him. Now that I think of it, it was a rushed and stupid idea because I did not want one but every time my friends talked about their first kiss or their boyfriends, I felt so left out and I hated the feeling. His name was Warren and he was sixteen. He was my first kiss too and the first guy to take me out on a date. He had organised the cutest picnic for us and bought me some chocolate too and even introduced me to his best friends which meant a lot to me. I was the happiest girl in the world. We were happy for a whole month until he decided I just wasn’t good enough and dumped me. Even this day I can’t even tell why he broke up with me. We never had any fights or arguments even, we were always happy and that is what shocks me even more. To say I was heartbroken was an understatement. they really don’t lie when they say the first heartbreak is the hardest and the most painful to get over. Shortly after the heartbreak, I discovered my love for poetry. I poured my heart out on paper because every time I thought about killing myself I realised just how stupid and idiotic I was sounding because he was just yet another boy. One thing I knew was that the heartbreaks will keep being there and there will always be someone else, someone better and of course I was just too young to be giving up so early. But, that is not even the relationship that almost ruined my life. I mean it almost did but not quiet.   When the heartbreak happened, I told my friends and they were comforting. My circle of friends was actually a triangle. Just me, Kayla and Oar’a. The three of us were a bit of badass to be honest. All the boys wanted us, all the girls wanted to be us or at least be around us and everyone else feared us. The two were fairly prettier than me but I had a banging body which gave me a couple more points. We were the popular girls and that’s the beauty of high school, we basically got what we wanted and got away with a lot of things a lot of times. I was one of the smartest in school too while my two best friends were pretty average students so most of the time people would say I was the bad influence and I was okay with that. I kept my bad girl image up and no one dared to bully me anymore. I always threatened to be violent but I have no bone of violence in my body but people believe what they want anyway. We had the most interesting fights but made up at the end of it and that was the best part of our friendship. . . .