First Love: Confessions of a Peter Pan Fangirl

When I was a wee young thing, before I became the very reasonable, perpetually serious adult I am today, I used to stay up at night and wait for Peter Pan.  Any minute, I remember believing, the magical boy with the mischievous shadow would fly through my window, and off to Neverland we’d go.

It sounds all very whimsical and imaginative, but I took this dream very seriously.  I was a lot like Wendy Moira Angela Darling, with an adventurous spirit and an affinity for long antiquated nightgowns.  Who better to be a mother to the Lost Boys?  Nevertheless, there was one night when I realized Peter Pan wasn’t coming for me.  “If Peter wanted to be with you,” I told myself, “he would have come for you by now.”  I was relationship-wise even before He’s Just Not That Into You debuted.  I closed my eyes and went to sleep.

Now, this story is only cute and sweet because I was about four years old.  And I really, really, wish it had ended there.  But the way I felt about Peter Pan resurrected itself when I was in middle school, and the P.J. Hogan film of Peter Pan came out, starring Jeremy Sumpter:

Look at that face!  I was 13, overly dramatic, and in the middle of an awkward phase.  He was perfectly beautiful and sparkly, but not in a creepy Edward Cullen way.  This, to me, was love.

One of the side effects of being in love with Jeremy Sumpter was drastic mood swings.  “Sometimes I’m so happy, because he exists, but other times I’m sad, because we’re not together!” I bemoaned to my mother, who struggled to keep a straight face.  My sister mocked me mercilessly, but I didn’t mind.  “Someday you’ll be in love, too,” I’d say, “and then you will know how it feels.”  She would run away screaming with laughter, and I would shake my head mournfully.  She was so innocent and naïve.

Aside from my immediate family, however, I kept this love a secret.  I was afraid of it being dismissed as a crush, which, of course, was trivializing and absurd.  I refused to have a deep and true love like ours tarnished by nonbelievers.  I knew we would get married one day.  And thus, I began to prepare.

This is where things start to get embarrassing.  (Start?  Because they weren’t before?)  I scoured every Jeremy Sumpter fan website known to preteens.  I learned pool and basketball, just because those were his hobbies.  I still remember that his dog was named “Bear,” and that his favorite athlete was Barry Bonds.  I had no idea who Barry Bonds was at the time, but I clung to every bit of information I could find; it would all just serve to bring me closer to him.

I also wrote Jeremy Sumpter a fan letter.  To be clear, it was not a love letter; I knew he would find that incredibly creepy, so I was like, “I really respect your work.  Also, I live in LA, so maybe I’ll see you at the grocery store sometime!”  Ah, the classic grocery store line.  Works every time.

Apparently, however, I wasn’t destined to meet Jeremy Sumpter.  That was my father’s fate.  It was at a golf tournament, and my dad was following Tiger Woods.  He heard a familiar voice behind him: “Dad!  Can you believe that drive?!  He’s amazing!”  It was the voice of a young boy with the slightest of speech impediments.  …Could it be?  He turned around.  It was. 

When I got home from school that fateful day, my dad handed me the guide to the Target World Challenge, 2004.  I pretended to think it was cool, until my dad told me to open it up and look inside.  I found this, and promptly fell apart emotionally:

I wish I could tell you that I was so incredibly happy that, with a little fairy dust, I could have flown off the floor.  Instead, I became hysterical, convinced that my father was mocking my love.  I threw myself on the couch, choking on my sobs and screeching in adolescent agony.  How could I live with a family that refused to take their future son-in-law seriously?!?  Didn’t they know that in my dreams, Jeremy and I were already in the hand-holding stage of our relationship?!? 

Of course, by the end of the evening, I had been told the whole story, and I knew the autograph was real.  I slept with it under my pillow that night, and for many nights thereafter, imagining it to be the sole link between soul mates.  Did Jeremy ever think about me, too?  Did an odd, anonymous girl in Abercrombie and Fitch sweatpants wander into his dreams at night?

I’m not sure if I ever made the conscious decision to get over Jeremy Sumpter.  I just Googled him, however, and learned that he has a girlfriend.  I’m strangely not affected by this would-be tragic news.  I suppose that, somewhere along the line, I flew away from my fantasy of romantic Neverland love and decided to grow up, just like Wendy.  I am left only with a sincerely sentimental attachment to a golf tournament guide, and a severely embarrassing story that I never should have chosen to share.  Oh, well.  Second star to the right, and straight on ‘til morning!  

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