A Walk Down My Memory's Lane With a Quick Stop at Heaven's Gift Shop

I remember the first time a told a girl I loved her. It was at summer Bible camp going into my freshman year of high school. I wrote those sacred words on a crumbled piece of paper, with one of those nubby pew pencils that church goers use to write their names in the attendance books, and children use to play hang man, and tic-tac-toe on prayer request slips. With fingers shaking frantic I slid the note over to her real down low, real slick. She, much to my chagrin, put the note in her Bible without so much as a glance and then walked out of the chapel with her friends giggling and reading the note.  The day passed with me wracking my brain wondering, hoping, and scared. Then I saw it, my dream girl’s best friend walking my way with what appeared to be a very complicated and intricately folded response note.  I quickly shoved the note with grimy hands, into my equally grimy shorts pocket and sprinted back to my cabin. Sitting in my bunk I reverently removed the note and held it up to the light. The note was immaculate. (Are girls born with an innate ability to creatively fold notes? To this day I can barely fold a sheet of paper cleanly in half let alone engineer some kind of tri-folding, secret latching, origami note.) She had lightly breezed the note with the world’s greatest smelling perfume it was something akin to an angel’s breath, and potpourri from Heaven’s gift shop. I took a deep breath and opened the note savoring each piece that I unfolded knowing that the very next move might reveal the knowledge that I so desperately was seeking. Last little bit, and there they were the words I so longed to see. “I love you too.” Also the note included a pack of Smarties. Which on a mildly interesting side note I still have under my bed at my parent’s house in an old tackle box.  My first taste of love.

It’s great how simple love is when you are young. To a young man, love is a smile, a note, and some Smarties, maybe a Slim Jim, but that would be true love I suppose. All grown up, and love has become a complicated, morose, tangled weave of irritations, obligations, and for the lucky few, love.  I have had three loves in my life that were real and worthwhile.

The first real love of my adulthood I was betrothed to. This was mostly a result of two huge weaknesses that I suffer from. The first being my inability to say no to sales people, they say there is a sucker born every minute and on that fateful day in April thirty years ago I was that sucker. I walked into the jewelry store with the sole intention of looking at a ring to purchase sometime in the distant future for my girlfriend. I walked out of that store about twenty minutes later with a 5,000 dollar diamond ring, and one of those plush teddy bears that benefit the children at Saint Jude’s Hospital. (Come to think of it, I may have also bought some swamp land in Louisiana, and volcano insurance.) The plan was to stash the ring in my dad’s safety deposit box, and patiently wait for the right time. Remember when I said TWO weaknesses. Well the other weakness that I suffer from is an inability to not give someone a present I bought them.  If you know me well you know this weakness due to the Christmas presents you have received during dessert at Thanksgiving dinner. All this resulted in about six months of wedding planning and one super expensive paper weight left on my desk one night.

Love #2 came into my world at college of all places, the holy grail of finding one’s love. You know the first thing that attracted this girl to me? She had really ugly shoes. A stunningly beautiful girl, stunningly ugly shoes. Why the shoes? I don’t know really. I think I just found that kind of simplicity and nonchalance about footwear refreshing.  I have never had a crush on a girl like I did on this one, and one day I caught wind that she also crushed on me!  Wouldn’t you know it that very next Sunday I attended her church, and was invited over for a picnic. Like most picnics we played backyard volleyball, and like any guy I wanted to impress the girl and dominate the game. Channeling my inner Ben Stiller I promptly spiked the volleyball into her little sisters face. Her grandfather makes eye contact with me, points his finger at my face, and says, “Strike one.”   She still liked me, despite her better judgment I imagine, and we had a really great relationship. Love #2 and I were perfect for each other in many really great ways, but like a lot of things it was not meant to be. I still hold her and her family deep in my heart, and find joy in their happiness.

Love #3 simply put was the love that never was.  Always just out of reach, and always on my mind.

 The point? I guess the point is I really need to stop listening to this darned Monster Ballads CD late at night, and that love is great.  Maybe love is as simple as a note with perfume on it. Maybe love broke your heart, but love great or small, tragic, or blissful is still love and it’s the greatest of human emotion given to us straight from God. I guess this blog was just my way of dipping my feet into the memories of the past, basking in the emotion, and happily knowing that things worked out as they should, as they always do.

“Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower, we grieve not; rather find strength in what remains behind; in the primal sympathy, which having been must ever be.” William Wordsworth

Inspired by you inside and out truly one of God’s most beautiful creations. Written on the Isle for Meta. (And no dear reader you are not supposed to understand this part.)