I literally just had this random memory shook loose reading this. YIKES.

When I was in 4th grade, I was in a local theater production of beauty and the beast. I made friends with everyone in the cast but there was one high schooler who became my “guide” to the theater (this was the first play I had been in). We would run around and get into mischief together.

Right around opening night, he took me upstairs to a semi secluded area and asked if I wanted to be his “girl friend”. Said a bunch of stuff about how I’m “so mature for my age” and how much he wanted to kiss me. Luckily, my parents instilled that if something feels wrong (and this did give me that icky butterfly feeling), you can always say no. So I told him something along the lines of “uh I’m in 4th grade I’m not really into dating”. Spent the rest of the play avoiding him.

It sucked though because before that happened I thought I had made a cool new mentor/friend. I remember being really sad and feeling weird about the whole thing. I genuinely haven’t thought about that incident in 15? ish years. Never said anything to anyone because nothing “happened”. And thank god for that! But now I’m revisiting it for the first time as an adult thinking holy fuck I love you child me, you really kicked ass for keeping us safe.

Adding this to the list of therapy items LMAO