First
Can you remember the first time you were in love? Really, horribly, hopelessly in love? Like, waiting all day just to catch a glimpse of his face? Smelling her perfume on the air and thinking she's behind you, even twenty-years later? Watching him walk off an elevator toward you and bursting into the most ridiculous grin that it makes other people smile to see you? The kind of love that follows you around, tugging at your shirt-sleeve, whispering in your ear, "Remember, he's going to be at his locker between his Chemistry class and Stats, so you want to hurry up there and walk nonchalantly by until he says hello." Stupid love.
Everyone falls in love like that once or twice, right? Phone calls in the middle of the night kind of love. Fantasies of Prom or formals or, God forbid, marriage dancing through your brain. Or, I suppose, fantasies of car backseats or parks at night or dark alleys. Whatever floats your boat, really.
I first fell in love hard. It was awful. Just awful. And I was so dumb. So, so dumb. And he was in love with someone else. I just had...even worse that first love...unrequited love. Actually, pretty much all love on my part until I was about 23 was unrequited.
But we were really good friends. Those talk in the middle of the night in high school kinds of friends. I'd call and wake up his step-mother, who was pregnant with his half-brother at the time. She must have absolutely hated my guts, although I'm fairly certain I was not the only girl he had running around in circles. I was just the most naive. I'd be bitterly jealous when he wouldn't come to school, realizing that he was off doing something he enjoyed and that I couldn't be a part of it. My mother thought I was ridiculous and she was at least partially right. I was in love, honest, true love, but I was an idiot.
I bought him a dictionary for graduation from high school. How...dorky. I mean, I'm trying to think of a good word to use to describe it, but dorky really is the only word that fits the bill. But I didn't know any better. It was the first time I'd been in love. A dictionary. I could tell you long stories about our AP English class (speaking of dorky) in an effort to justify this gift but it really can't overcome the sheer pathetic nature of the entire situation.
I still smell Obsession for Men and think of him. Even though the only people who wear it now are old men. I'll catch a whiff of it and look up, thinking for sure he's there. Instead, a white-haired man is holding a door open for me. Or a man with metal-framed glasses is asking me the time.
We're still friends. We go long periods without talking. Then we'll talk every day for a week. We pick up where we left off. I complain about my job. He tells me about his new girlfriend. I wonder about the future. He bitches about student loans. I talk about crime statistics. He bounces ideas around about Al Sharpton. He keeps me young.
But it isn't the same. I can't feel that way about him now. Thank goodness. We aren't the same anymore. And I'm looking for different things.
I get glimpses, however, of feeling that way again. About other people. And I'm so thankful that, now, I can recognize that feeling. And know that it is real. Actual, honest-to-goodness love. Just as long as I don't still act like an idiot, I should be okay.
Everyone falls in love like that once or twice, right? Phone calls in the middle of the night kind of love. Fantasies of Prom or formals or, God forbid, marriage dancing through your brain. Or, I suppose, fantasies of car backseats or parks at night or dark alleys. Whatever floats your boat, really.
I first fell in love hard. It was awful. Just awful. And I was so dumb. So, so dumb. And he was in love with someone else. I just had...even worse that first love...unrequited love. Actually, pretty much all love on my part until I was about 23 was unrequited.
But we were really good friends. Those talk in the middle of the night in high school kinds of friends. I'd call and wake up his step-mother, who was pregnant with his half-brother at the time. She must have absolutely hated my guts, although I'm fairly certain I was not the only girl he had running around in circles. I was just the most naive. I'd be bitterly jealous when he wouldn't come to school, realizing that he was off doing something he enjoyed and that I couldn't be a part of it. My mother thought I was ridiculous and she was at least partially right. I was in love, honest, true love, but I was an idiot.
I bought him a dictionary for graduation from high school. How...dorky. I mean, I'm trying to think of a good word to use to describe it, but dorky really is the only word that fits the bill. But I didn't know any better. It was the first time I'd been in love. A dictionary. I could tell you long stories about our AP English class (speaking of dorky) in an effort to justify this gift but it really can't overcome the sheer pathetic nature of the entire situation.
I still smell Obsession for Men and think of him. Even though the only people who wear it now are old men. I'll catch a whiff of it and look up, thinking for sure he's there. Instead, a white-haired man is holding a door open for me. Or a man with metal-framed glasses is asking me the time.
We're still friends. We go long periods without talking. Then we'll talk every day for a week. We pick up where we left off. I complain about my job. He tells me about his new girlfriend. I wonder about the future. He bitches about student loans. I talk about crime statistics. He bounces ideas around about Al Sharpton. He keeps me young.
But it isn't the same. I can't feel that way about him now. Thank goodness. We aren't the same anymore. And I'm looking for different things.
I get glimpses, however, of feeling that way again. About other people. And I'm so thankful that, now, I can recognize that feeling. And know that it is real. Actual, honest-to-goodness love. Just as long as I don't still act like an idiot, I should be okay.
posted by Miss Head at
2:06 PM
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