My love life started early. And that's not a figure of speech.

When I watched Flipped, the movie where a girl falls in love with her neighbor as a child and is treated as if she's being dramatic, I realized that my first love had started even earlier than theirs.

It happened in kindergarten. I was five years old.

Her name was Márcia. How do I remember that? I'm no expert, but trauma has a strange talent for sticking around. And, as you might expect, she didn't feel the same. She liked Ricardo, a boy from our class.

One day, I told her how I felt. I was rejected. Not just rejected, but dismissed. I remember her saying, word for word, that she would never like me. That is my earliest traumatic memory.

In that moment, I realized there was no one I could talk to about it. My parents provided everything materially, but they were never emotionally available. And if, even today, I don't really have a friend I can open up to, imagine at that age.

At five years old, I learned that I was alone with what I felt. That emotions didn't find a place to rest. It was heavy.

Today, I can see how childhood shapes the rest of our lives. Márcia helped shape who I became. She shaped the way I deal with feelings, vulnerability, and relationships.

Very early on, I learned that being open felt dangerous. Rejection hit a self-esteem that had barely begun to exist.

In Flipped, Juli spends years being ignored by Bryce, as if what she feels is just childish exaggeration. One day, she finally realizes she deserves more than someone who pretends she doesn't exist. The pain becomes a filter. Self-respect. Maturity.

I didn't get that arc so early. At five, like Juli at the beginning of the movie, all I knew was that I liked someone and that this person would never like me back. The difference is that, while the movie finds a way to heal the wound, mine stayed open for a long time.

Márcia was my Bryce Loski: the first name that taught me that loving could mean suffering.

This is my oldest scar. At five years old.