Mush: Musings on Love Found, Love Lost and Love Unrequited

Have you ever had feelings for someone where there’s just something about the person that twists up your insides and turns you into a blubbering mess? Where you feel so strongly, yet, when you step outside of yourself and look at the situation, you feel like your insane for feeling the way you do? Have you ever had feelings for someone that just didn’t make sense? Someone you barely know…someone you’ve never spent any time with…someone who keeps you on the other side of the valley?

I have a hard time believing that there is such a thing as ‘love at first sight’…I believe that you can be attracted to someone instantaneously, but love is such a strong word for such a powerful emotion…I just don’t believe that something as strong and as complex as love can take over your consciousness in an instant.

But if there is a level just below love…I’ve been overwhelmed by its tidal wave once or twice in my life.

The first time was in High School. It was the first week of grade 9 and upon entering English class, I was told by some friends about this really ‘hot’ girl that was in someone’s French class. The way my friends were talking, it was if some supermodel was attending our school. Just then, she walked past us and into my next class…

“Aw man, you’re so lucky…she’s in your class dude!”

I didn’t get a good look at her, so I probably just shrugged, trying not to make a big deal of it, and walked into my class. I sat next to someone I knew from elementary school, and looked across the room and spotted the girl…I didn’t need anyone to point her out…and yes, she was stunning.

I ended up developing a pretty huge crush on this girl…along with half of my grade 9 class. This was around the time that Alicia Silverstone was breaking into pop culture with those Aerosmith video’s and the ironically titled 'The Crush'…and this girl looked quite similar…later on, when I became friends with this girl, I came to realize how rough being ‘objectified’ by all those horny teenagers had been, and how it had affected her, and I felt bad about my initial crush…not ‘too’ bad, because, well, I’ve always prided myself on being a gentleman and have tried not to ogle or partake in any of the other crass, obvious behavior guys will sometimes do when they spot someone who’s easy on the eyes...but still, I wasn't an innocent either.

Nevertheless…I had a pretty wicked crush on this girl, as did one of my good buddies…and it lasted all they way until grade 11…when I once again had a class with her…actually 2...only this time, we ended up sitting right next to each other in both. Over the course of that semester, I really got to know her, not just as the ‘pretty face’ or as the ‘cool chick who I had a crush on’…but as the truly unique, intelligent, funny, wild, opinionated, stubborn, amazing person that she was. She just happened to be an attractive girl too. By this time, I guess all the pressures of being an ‘it girl’ in High School had started to make her jaded…and she began to withdraw from the main social circles in our High School. We hung out a couple of times that year, ate lunch, worked together on a few assignments…and I went from having a crush, to truly admiring and respecting this girl…sure, I was still attracted to her, but it had evolved past the simple ‘physical attratction’ stage and become something…more.

The last 2 years of High School, I didn’t see ‘the girl’ much…I had a couple of classes with her, but by this time, she wasn’t really hanging out with anyone at school and was dating guys from 'out of town'. I’d occasionally go out of my way to track her down in the hall to see how she was, ask what was new, but I knew our relationship would probably never be more than a friendship…so I essentially let her go. However, in one final act, she proved to me that I had indeed meant something to her.

In the last month of High School, I was called down to the V.P.’s office and told that I had been nominated for Valedictorian of our graduating class. Truly amazed (Valedictorian is almost always a popularity contest, one I knew I had no right winning) I was shown the ‘nomination’ form and what had been said about me…and who it was who had nominated me. I’m sure you can guess who it was. And it still, to this day, is one of the nicest things anyone has ever said about me or done for me. I hadn’t been wrong about her. I later thanked her for the nomination, and while I didn’t win (huge conspiracy…votes thrown out…new ballot with 3 names (including mine) not on it…) its something I still remember fondly.

I haven’t seen ‘the girl’ since the last week of High School…that was almost 10 years ago. We’ve been in touch a couple of times, and each time, its awkward for me because, while I am certainly ‘over’ her and those feelings I once had…I still haven’t met anyone quite like her…and it makes me wonder if, in fact, it really was love at first sight, and I was just too foolish to believe it?

I’ve been in a couple of (not many I’m afraid) relationships that were fun, fulfilling and, at times, loving during and since High School…I’ve even had the inkling of the feeling I remember having when I still knew ‘the girl’ once or twice since then…one of the girls I worked with for 2 summers while I was at University reminded me of ‘her’…she was vibrant, full of life, and sharp as a whip…she was awesome…but she was seeing someone at the time, so we just were ‘friends’. Such has been my luck for most of my adult life. Meet someone special…find out that some lucky guy met her first.

So why am I telling you this? Why am I feeling so nostalgic? Well, the truth is, someone has come into my life (if you can call it that) who I admire and feel for much the same way I did ‘the girl’. Only, instead of it being someone I see everyday, and talk to regularly, she’s, in face-to-face terms, a stranger. I’ve tried everything I can think of to get to know her while keeping my feet on the ground…trying to keep my wits about me…not letting myself get carried away...reminding myself constantly that to get all wrapped up in something so unbelievable…so incredibly silly…is to have the blindfold wrapped around my eyes...ready for the firing squad to take aim at my heart once again. But I really like this girl. Its a totally different situation than the one I found myself in all those years ago...yet the feeling is hauntingly similar.

Maybe all it is is just a crush…a silly bout of infatuation with someone who may, or may not be the person I think they are? Maybe I’m just lonely and I’m projecting the best parts of the most special people who’ve come into my life on her…unfairly? Maybe I’m in way over my head, and will soon have the rug of fantasy pulled out from under me? Or maybe...maybe I'm trying to talk myself out of it to protect myself from the inevitable rejection that, I can only assume, is on its way...when really I should just believe in myself...and in her...and not assume anything.

As tortured and as broken up as I feel right now…its been a long time since I’ve even come close to feeling this way…and its reminded me just how much power and influence our emotions...my emotions...can have over our lives…over me...and there’s something about this feeling that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world…despite the pain. I know I wouldn't feel this way if I didn't think I was being so stupid and irrational...but then...can there be such a thing as 'stupid' and 'irrational' when it comes to describing our emotions?

I’m doing everything I can to pull myself together…to ‘get real’ and ‘snap myself out of it’...but its hard because part of me doesn't want to. Some days I'm fine...other days, its as if I'm surrounded on all sides by 100 foot billboards of her...as they slowly close in all around me. The situation is, to be sure, very complicated...dizzyingly so sometimes...and my feelings being what they are, and the distance between us being what it is, it feels like I’m driving headlong into a brick wall day after day after day…and the odd time I’m able to break through said wall…I, in my amazment at getting over/around/through the wall, invariably, and quite subconsciously, wildly jerk the wheel all over the place, losing control, and crashing into a ditch somewhere…and by the time I’m back on the road…that big brick wall is right back in front of me. And its the fact that I do it to myself…that I'm the one ultimately responsible for tripping myself up and scuffing my chin...that really kills me. I try too hard sometimes…I want so bad to be understood...to be seen for the person that I really am inside...and it comes from such a pure, innocent place that it just kills me that I can’t harness it…that I can’t take the parts and build a whole that shines the way I want it to shine. Instead, like some pig, I end up rolling around in my own muck...covering myself in shit and more shit.

No…I am indeed the saboteur of my own shattered existence. As much as I want to hold on and hold out hope that the tide will one day turn for me, and I'll finally break through...all this chaos has got me asking...

“What am I going to do with myself?”