People come and go in our lives all the time. Sometimes it's just a fleeting experience; here today gone tomorrow. Sometimes they leave a lasting impression because they've helped you discover something about yourself. Something that had always been there, just below the surface and you never knew that it was there.
Sometimes it's you, who leaves a lasting impression on them. Perhaps, through you, becoming a stronger and more independent person. Perhaps opening a door for them to look at themselves in a different light. Or maybe as simple as just being a friend letting them know that they aren't alone in this world.
And sometimes you find one who's been there all along and you know that everything before led you to realize that the two of you were meant to be.
This story is a really slow build, with a lot of drama and build-up. But then don't 'Drama' and 'awaking teenage girls' and just teenage girls in general, go together?
So, If slow drama between girls isn't your thing, then best you move on rather than be disappointed. Some may think that as the story progresses, that the emotions get 'over the top'. Some may think that it goes into too much detail.
It's how I write, with feeling and emotions. Because that's what falling and being in love is about... for everyone.
All sex is between those who are 18 or over. And just a final note, there's no real sex in this chapter just some exploration.
I think it was the end of my senior year in high school, when I read in one of those girly magazines, that sex with another woman is in a universe all by itself. At the time, I didn't understand, and couldn't imagine any of went into that and why, and how, would you have sex with another woman?
But, here I was, relaxing with a feeling of peace and contentment with my soulmate. A feeling of being so close to another person, not just the feeling of a warm bare body laying next to me sleeping peacefully, but a feeling of a deep and undying love and connection.
But, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me back up to how I got here. It's nothing glamorous or all that exciting... just me taking baby steps down an unknown and undiscovered path. Meeting people along the way. Sharing a bit of myself with them, and receiving a bit of themselves back. Becoming the person that I am today. The person with who I'm totally comfortable and at peace with.
.................................................
My name is Lisa. I was born and raised in a small mid-western dairy town during the 70s. The town had a population of around 4,000, and that's in the summer if you count the seasonal migrant workers. Migrant workers who came in and worked in the local truck farms and then left at the end of the growing season, although there were a few that stayed over the winter. I don't know what they did for money and those with kids were enrolled in our schools. They pretty much kept to themselves as they talked back and forth in their native language... Spanish.
I grew up on a dairy farm with my mom, dad, and two older brothers: Kevin and Dale, with Kevin being the oldest, which he was constantly, and teasingly, reminding us of. The three of us were all within a year of each other. I guess my parents didn't waste any time between pregnancies. We worked 450 acres of farmland, which was mostly fields of winter wheat, corn, soybeans, alfalfa, and about 30 acres of wooded pasture with a small stream through it. We raised a mixture of cows mostly dairy but with a few beef cows thrown in for our own consumption and for a few of my parents' friends. We also raised about a dozen chickens for eggs and a few for our Sunday dinners. From as early as I can remember, it was mostly my job to feed them and gather the eggs on a daily basis.
We also had a huge vegetable garden with a variety of vegetables: tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers, peas, green beans, asparagus, and watermelon. My mom was always canning, pickling, and/or freezing whatever was ripening at the time. It seemed like something was always ready to be picked through the entire summer. Most of the time, our evening dinners consisted of burgers, sliced tomatoes, corn on the cob, sliced cucumber and onions that had been marinating in vinegar all day. We weren't picky eaters. What my mom made for dinner was what you had. If you didn't like it, you went hungry. She was fond of saying, "This ain't a restaurant".
My dad always taught my brothers and me that if you're going to do something, it only takes a little extra effort to do it right. So, for that reason, he would always supplement the beef cow's diet when it got close to sending them off to the packaging company with a mixture of ground corn and molasses. The end results were tender and nicely marbled steaks and roasts with a rich earthy flavor, that could never be found in the grocery store.
His attention to going the extra mile carried over to the dairy side of the farm. We raised and milked between 75 and 85 head of Holstein dairy cows with a few Guernsey cows thrown in just to increase the butterfat and flavor of the milk. Our milk had won a number of blue ribbons at county fairs and even one at the state fair. There's nothing like fresh raw milk with its rich and creamy taste.
Growing up on a dairy farm is hard work. Milking cows twice a day seven days a week was hard. Cows didn't know that there were such things called 'weekends'. In the summer we had fields of corn and soybeans to plant and keep cultivated to keep the weeds down. My dad never sprayed herbicides on the fields to keep the weeds under control. He said he didn't like the idea of the spray getting into the groundwater and our well water. And then when the haying season hit it was 10-hour days for 3 to 4 days straight in the dust, heat, and humidity. Making hay was a three-step process: mowing, letting the hay lay in the sun to adequately dry for a couple of days, wind rowing, and then baling. You had to be extra careful to make sure that the hay was completely dry before baling and stacking it in the hay mow. If it was even a bit damp, the bales would heat up enough that spontaneous combustion would occur and set the whole barn on fire. I had seen a few barn fires, and you really felt for the family.
It was times like those that really brought the farming community together. Neighbors and other farmers would drop whatever they were doing to help out, whether it was with the stricken family's crops, a family emergency, or getting together for a 'barn raising'. I've seen complete barns be rebuilt in less than a week. And the bales of hay from their own hay mows replaced what was lost in the fire.
Why would anyone choose to live in a large and uncaring city? This was God's country. I couldn't see myself living anywhere else.
I guess being the youngest and a girl, I got the easy job of driving the tractor; actually, I'd been driving a tractor since I was about 8 years old. On a working farm, every hand is needed and at times my mom would relieve me for a bit when she saw me not paying attention and getting tired. Safety was something that was ingrained in each of us being around power equipment. Still, this was a time before air-conditioned tractor cabs. You were out in the open and while it sounds like a nice way to get a nice tan, sitting there in a bikini top and shorts, I never did. I was a fair-skinned blonde, that didn't turn into the picture postcard golden tan. Nope, it was 'burn and peal city' for me. So, I always wore a brimmed hat, long-sleeved shirts, working jeans, and boots with lots of zinc oxide on my nose. That always brought joking comments from my brothers. I would just stick my tongue out at them and walk away. We had that kind of brother-sister relationship as young kids which continued through our teenage years and beyond. We always looked out for each other. Well, it was mostly them watching out for me, more on that later.
As I carefully drove the tractor my dad would stack the hay bales on the wagon as they came off the baler. My brother's jobs were to drive the full hay wagon to the barn to be stored in the hay mow. One would offload each bale onto an elevator while my other brother would be in the hay mow taking the bales as they dropped from the elevator and stacking them. They would switch off every other turn as the hay mow was hot and dusty and even with a gallon of ice water, you run the risk of becoming dehydrated.
The fun part was that at the end of a hot, tiring, and dusty day. The three of us would head out back to a small stream to cool off and wash away the day's grime. It always felt nice to feel the cool water glide over my bare skin and everywhere else.
My brothers always respected me, even when we were very young. They would always head off upstream to strip off and swim, leaving me on my own to do the same. The stream wasn't deep, so it wasn't like I was going to drown, or anything. At that early age, I didn't know what the big deal was. But, after 'The Talk' with my mom years later, I came to appreciate their thoughtfulness and caring.
But, it wasn't all 'work and no play'. There were days between fieldwork, or when it rained, when we just got to be kids. The closest neighbor with kids our own age was probably a mile or so away, so most of the time it was just the three of us. With two older brothers, I learned at an early age how to dribble and shoot a basketball and how to hit and throw a baseball. Although they always teased me that, 'I threw like a girl'. I was into 4H. Raised a calf; from its first days to a heifer, and finally to a calf-bearing cow that joined our herd. I was proud of that achievement and got a red ribbon at the county fair.
Besides all of the farm animals: the cows and chickens, there were always pets around. We had a black and white border collie, named Lady who I loved from the moment she licked my face when she was a puppy. Working in the fields Lady was always nearby. And when we went for a swim at the end of a hot and dusty day, she was right next to me, swimming and playing in the cool water. Lady was housebroken so many nights she would sleep in my room. And then those cold winter nights laying at the foot of my bed keeping my feet warm.
And then there were the barn cats. We never knew where they came from. Some months there'd be a herd of cats of various ages, and then the next month just six or eight. With all of the grain and stuff around, they pretty much kept the mouse and rat population under control. I tried to get close to them as often as I could, but they were all wild. Trying to get them to eat out of my hand was challenging and took patience. Most of the time they just ran away and hid whenever you came into the room. Occasionally I could kind of tame one or two enough that I could pet them. I loved hearing them purr as I stroked their fur and rubbed their tummy. My dad just smiled as whenever the vet came out for something, I always had him look at whatever friendly cat I had. It always broke my heart when they would up and disappear into the wild seemingly overnight.
School was not a problem for me. Math and the sciences came easy... English literature and history were boring, but I came through those classes with decent grades.
I had a lot of girlfriends. We were obviously too young to date. So, no matter the time of year, we'd rotate and have sleepovers at somebody's house with maybe 6 or 8 teenage girls. Probably drove the dad of the hosting girl nuts with all of our non-stop giggling and stuff through the night.
Sleepovers were fun. It was our way to stay connected, especially in the summer when school was out. After changing into our pajamas, we did what young teenage girls have done since probably like forever. We sat around and talked girl-talk... boys... other girls... boys... our changing, or non-changing bodies... boys. Well, you get the picture.
There were four of us that kind of formed the core of our close group: Vickie, Erica, Sam - short for Samantha, and Chris. We'd watch each other's back and take care of each other when any of us got teased or later, during one of those heart-breaking times over some stupid guy thing.
