If I close my eyes tight enough, and shut the outside world off for a moment or two, my mind will pull from the cobwebs the past, a glowing neon sign in the offramp of life, discovered like some secret treasure - hidden but not forgotten. And it is at that second when present meets memory which produces the fresh scent of squeezed lemons on newly mowed grass in which I can vaguely hear music pumping through the hot humid air, microscopic particles of summer locked in a few lyrics to an irregular song.

If I pull on the string of recollection a little harder, I am able to the feel the warm blankets around my small limbs, like fog almost in their all encompassing power, able to hold me and bind me to a world I could never accomplish without their guiding fabric. The memory falls faster and harder and I invision my tiny hands greedily tugging on loose leaf paper, my grin like a forest fire, powerful and bright. The awkwardness of youth surrounding my body, setting in, sliding like butterflies, while words touched paper.

It was with this newfound adult-ness that I stumbled across my first love, when I was barely able to tell you what made me, me. I had no place yet to belong and cared not for such things in life. Yet there I was, falling hard and yielding against the cheek of a boy, not quite older than myself, yet more mystical than any person I had seen occupying the dusty sidewalk just outside the house.

From the moment he popped into my life, a bright swirl of color and laughter, my soft eleven-year-old heart was captured in the callous palm of Jordan Taylor Hanson. I surrendered it willingly.

Those early months when school came to an applauded end, and the days were lazy and slow, I learned in the recess of my pink accented bedroom how to MMMBop. The orange glint of the newly unwrapped CD glowed unusually bright; as eddies of immaculate pigments of red and blues, greens and yellows glowed down from the ex-white walls of my bedroom. They smiled at me and swirled around, three young men singing directly to me, no matter how many little girls were in the way, the distance between their laughter and mine was only dreamt.

It seemed as if from that moment I was caught up in a whirlwind romance, one I would treasure and hold dear as if compacted by blood. I breathed his blue eyes, sparkles of stars I grew to see reflected in my own cinnamon eyes. The blush, like the prized roses that grew tall and strong each summer, covered his cheeks and wove itself into the color of my heart as I wanted nothing more than to grow old with him (whatever that means to an eleven-year-old).
For years I waited for him, my childish behavior watched and snickered at by those of higher importance. I paid no heed, I was drawn to Taylor as a moth is drawn to an orange flickering flame, still deadly however beautiful. I fed and festered my ingrown love for him, his only acknowledgement a half-there smile, when his eyes would seem as if they were staring into my soul. And somehow that was all I needed, as I outgrew clothes and shoes, my unadorned love stayed strong and true.

And then, the moment that I had pined for, longed for, would have given up numerous toys and the like for, came swiftly and with torpedo speed upon me; the flash that I held Jordan Taylor Hanson's hand in my own.

His face had been cartoon-like, so real it seemed fake. I stuck my hand out impulsively, his sweet sweat lending itself to mine, his rough Band-Aid covered finger sweeping across my much smaller knuckles. My heart raced and my pulse thickened in a heartbeat as I felt the inkling of a hazy dream I had upon cloudy pillows, one where this close distance between Taylor and I could only be dreamt.

His rosy lips had curled upward in a tight-laced smile, and his eyes twinkled as I whimpered in vain - trying to form coherent thoughts that would penetrate my Taylor-induced haze. It was at that instant, surrounded by bright lights and noisy employees, I knew that even if I never uttered another word to the surreal being that stood mere inched from my rapidly heating body, it didn't matter for our one meeting had been overpowered my red hot magic.

After years of watching Disney fairytales, ones filled with Cinderella finding her prince, I knew when I took Taylor's callous palm in my own, that real magic could never be captured on film for it was a spiritual experience. Similar to breathing, it was natural and almost normal, while at the same time vital to my very preadolescent existence.

I had found my slice of heaven in one moment of time, as he released me and turned his silent gaze elsewhere. But for a split second Taylor Hanson had been mine, we had revolved around in a world where only we existed, no matter how short lived. And after it was over, my breathing returning to normal and some other girl claiming his attention, I knew what it was to let go.

There have been many blonde haired blue eyed boys since then, each capable of making my eyes flutter, my heart excellerate and stumble, and my breath hitch. I've worn my years as faded jeans, old and comfortable, and it seems that somehow Taylor has slipped out of my breathing pattern. No longer is he capable of inhibiting every sacred crevice of my mind, lurking in shadows. I have since dropped screaming as a pastime, and no more do I reach high levels of giddiness at the mere mention of his name. I have long since forgotten how to MMMBop, my legs misplaced the steps they had known so well years before. Sadly enough, the bright prisms of posters have since found their demise in a dust-covered shoebox stashed behind the naïveté I've shed.

It is not that I have gotten over Taylor Hanson; I've simply just grown up. Besides I heard someone once say that you never forget your first love.

Guest editorial by Madison