Do You Remember?

Do you remember your first crush?  I remember mine.  I was just a little boy.  The summer between my first and second grade.  She was a teenage girl helping out in a summer school for advanced kids who could read.  I just remember that feeling...that feeling of always wanting her attention, her affection.  It was so different from how I felt about my mother, sister, aunt or female peers.  I knew this girl...was a pretty woman who simply grabbed my attention right from the beginning.

Yes, that first crush.  You walk around dreamy eyed, thinking about that particular person.  Most times that first crush is about someone you probably have no chance of being with or expressing love to.  It's just that their being stirs something inside you.  It's all biological, biochemical.  Some could argue that it's all just mental and emotional, depending on your age.

I have to disagree with that.  Perhaps its all the above?  I just know for me it was visual and biochemical.  After a while she knew I had a crush on her and seemed embarrassed, but she handled it pretty good.  She entertained me, but kept me at a distance too.  I was just a kid.  Wherever she is today I thank her for that gentleness.  It made a difference later on as I had to deal with someone having a crush on me.  I learned how to be kind, gentle and appreciative while still keeping the distance.  It wasn't in me to take advantage or abuse someone substantially younger or someone that I had absolutely no interest in being with.

It's amazing how those life lessons come back to you in ways that you never even dreamed of them happening.  Treating others with kindness even if you have to keep your distance.  Having respect for them and for yourself.  Then came that moment when both parties realized what was happening and simply had a healthy and positive friendship instead of an interaction that devolved into negativity.