music, books, love and kindness

(this post is set to the tune of "Is This Love?" by Whitesnake)



I’m willing to bet that people (like me) who have never been in love (really in love, where it's a two-way street)  have no idea how it works in reality…that we romanticize it to the point of absurdity so badly it’s a wonder cartoon hearts aren’t flying out of our chest cavities when we speak of that special one.

I think back to the first person I ever thought I was in love with and how even all these years later, I can remember exactly how I felt about her, how her smile and her gentleness swims before my eyes even as I write this now.

She was amazingly kind and thoughtful, the kind of person who is nice to everyone no matter their background, their story, their looks or their station in life. And in a world like high school, where (like, a lot of people, I had my first big crush) this is a rarity that only made her all the more appealing to me.

She had this way of dressing, of moving and quietly talking that made her not only pleasing to the eye and ear, but very classy and chic in a genuine way. She was, right from the start, so much out of my league and social circle that she might as well been a movie star.

I knew that and also knew (oh so terribly so) that my feelings were wrong and totally inappropriate, considering I was a geek and a girl liking another girl (unheard of, at least verbally and in public, back then.)

Recently I saw she was on Facebook and for a half-second all those old feelings rushed up and I felt sick and giddy at the same time.

Sick: that I embarrassed myself with puppy dog eyes and bashful yet somehow still bold attempts to clumsily make friends so much back then that she had no choice but to ask her friends to ask me to leave her alone (but done in a sensitive way, again...so unlike the usual high school set of rules that would normally have called for something much harsher.)

Giddy: that she seemed to be doing well in life and "hey, whatever happened to?" was getting some closure right before my eyes.

Given the poor way I handled things way back then, there is no way I would ever Facebook her or even re-visit her page (it already feels so invasive that I visited it even once). But I would like to think that she really is happy and healthy and that just as time has mostly been kind to me, it has also been kind to her and that she would have no memory of how I was back then.

A crush like this pretty much answers no to the question "Is This Love?," but at the time (as it often does for so many victims of unrequited love and crushes) it sure felt like yes.