![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Giant Meme o' Me - Day 2
Mar. 23rd, 2011 10:08 amDay 02 - Your first love
At one point, while I was seeing the World's Worst Psychotherapist, she went on vacation for a couple of weeks and I saw her back-up. On our first visit, we talked for a bit, and then he asked me, completely out of the blue: "How old were you when you first fell in love?"*
I was thirteen and in my second year of high school, the year things started going bad. His name was Michael. He had curly dark brown hair and clear blue eyes and a smattering of freckles over tanned skin. He was stocky - broad shouldered and not overly tall - and the other boys called him "Podge". And he, out of everyone in my class, was the only one who didn't make my life hell. He was sweet and kind and funny and I adored him. For his part, he wasn't really aware I was there, except as a friend. Then again, he wasn't really interested in any of the girls.
Are we sensing a trend here?
I carried that torch for Michael all through high school. In Year 11, I summoned up the courage to ask him to be my partner for our debutante ball (it's a country thing, don't ask), and beyond all my expectations, he said yes. I remember one night at practice, we both had the interview for the Rotary Club's exchange program afterwards, and both of us were shaking and laughing about it. He got the exchange, but the Rotary Club offered me a consolation prize of a year in Japan with another group, coincidentally the same country Michael wound up going to. I don't know what made me happier, knowing I was spending a year in a foreign country or knowing that Michael would still be in my year level when I got back. We wrote to each other during that year, sharing experiences and issues and we became actual friends, something that continued through to our last year of school.
I still wonder what happened to him. He applied for the Air Force, but failed the asthma test on the second-last level (they hit you with histamines of increasing levels to see if you'll have an attack. He did with one left to go) and it devestated him - the Air Force had been his dream all through high school. The last I heard about him was that he had trained as an ambulance driver. I google him sometimes, but his name's almost as common as mine, so it hasn't been terribly productive. But I'll always remember his smile and the way he was with people, comfortable and soothing, and I wish him all the best, wherever he is.
*And yes, my concept of love and relationships is very much coloured by the fact I had an unrequited crush on the nicest boy in school for six years. I am literally a hopeless romantic.
( and the rest )
At one point, while I was seeing the World's Worst Psychotherapist, she went on vacation for a couple of weeks and I saw her back-up. On our first visit, we talked for a bit, and then he asked me, completely out of the blue: "How old were you when you first fell in love?"*
I was thirteen and in my second year of high school, the year things started going bad. His name was Michael. He had curly dark brown hair and clear blue eyes and a smattering of freckles over tanned skin. He was stocky - broad shouldered and not overly tall - and the other boys called him "Podge". And he, out of everyone in my class, was the only one who didn't make my life hell. He was sweet and kind and funny and I adored him. For his part, he wasn't really aware I was there, except as a friend. Then again, he wasn't really interested in any of the girls.
Are we sensing a trend here?
I carried that torch for Michael all through high school. In Year 11, I summoned up the courage to ask him to be my partner for our debutante ball (it's a country thing, don't ask), and beyond all my expectations, he said yes. I remember one night at practice, we both had the interview for the Rotary Club's exchange program afterwards, and both of us were shaking and laughing about it. He got the exchange, but the Rotary Club offered me a consolation prize of a year in Japan with another group, coincidentally the same country Michael wound up going to. I don't know what made me happier, knowing I was spending a year in a foreign country or knowing that Michael would still be in my year level when I got back. We wrote to each other during that year, sharing experiences and issues and we became actual friends, something that continued through to our last year of school.
I still wonder what happened to him. He applied for the Air Force, but failed the asthma test on the second-last level (they hit you with histamines of increasing levels to see if you'll have an attack. He did with one left to go) and it devestated him - the Air Force had been his dream all through high school. The last I heard about him was that he had trained as an ambulance driver. I google him sometimes, but his name's almost as common as mine, so it hasn't been terribly productive. But I'll always remember his smile and the way he was with people, comfortable and soothing, and I wish him all the best, wherever he is.
*And yes, my concept of love and relationships is very much coloured by the fact I had an unrequited crush on the nicest boy in school for six years. I am literally a hopeless romantic.
( and the rest )
