From the first moment i saw you i felt an instant attraction, unlike anything i have ever felt before or again for that matter. I was fortunate enough to have lived a few minutes away from your house and i would see you every so often and i would muster up enough courage to let out an audibly meek hello and you would politely reciprocate. Those were the first instances i can remember in what has been one of the most important sagas of my life. My first love.
Good fortune would have it that we both ended up in the same final year of high school at the same school. You still took my breath away every single morning i caught a glimpse of you in school. Good fortune would again allow me to become enmeshed in the same social circle that you were in. The more i got to know you the more enamoured i became. Sometimes you meet someone, and you just click. Which is what happened between us. You became the Kenan to my Kel. My Minney to my Mickey. Only this time i was suddenly struck with a sudden case of awkward teenage goofball syndrome. I was unable to string up a coherent sentence in your presence. You at times literally took my breath away. You could see i was visibly struggling but you still graciously enough always exchanged hellos and pleasantries with me and the occasional banter. It was a weird sensation because normally speaking i was so confident and composed and well spoken. Your presence turned me into jelly.
Time flew by and i realised we were getting to the end of the school year and if i didnt act fast i would lose my only chance to tell you about all my feelings for you. I still remember that day as clear as anything. I spent days rehearsing in my room and in my head what i would wear and what i would say to you. I remember what you were wearing and how beautiful and stylish you looked in your native American poncho. It was multi coloured. A different colour for each of your amazing attributes. Cool,stylish,warm,kind,intelligent and good natured. Despite my hours and days of practising i couldn't seize the moment. I stuttered and stuttered and you shuddered and looked visibly akward as i turned a simple offer of walking you to your next class into a complete incoherent babble with a slice of discomfort for both of us. I thought my chance was over. Fate decided to throw me another lifeline.
We were out of school and you had gone to a different educational institution than myself. I was at a loss for how i could redeem myself and finally convey to you all my feelings for you that i had by then had for so long. I must take this moment to give a massive shoutout to the creators and programmers of MSN messenger. Aaah...do you remember those days of our daily MSN conversations? I hope our conversations meant as much to you as they did to me? I now had the perfect format to convey my feelings to you once and for all. Eventhough i was still a stuttering wreck in your presence. At least now i could hide my nervousness behind the safety of my desktop screen.I would spend countless hours dissecting, analysing and replaying what you wrote in my mind trying to find secret hidden messages of your reciprocated feelings for me. I waited for you every night. Yes, i relished the minute i finished my shifts at my part time job or the end of my university lectures so i could racee home and logon to MSN. Being able to see when you was typing a message to me filled me with an excitement unparalleled till this day. Even behind the safety of my PC i was still a nervous wreck. I got word you were moving out of town so i had to act and AGAIN i did the best i could in gathering my courage and telling you about all my feelings for you. This time I did it. I covered my eyes in anticipation of what you would write back and didn't know what to expect. You were so gracious and kind to me, you even gave me your mobile phone number but as soon as I called you and i was removed from the safety bubble of being behind my PC screen my awkward ways and stutter kicked in again. I felt like kicking myself. Why could i not be normal around you when i was so outgoing and chilled out around everyone else. You needed conviction and confidence not a stuttering mess. I felt defeated but in my heart of hearts i couldn't and wouldn't give you up. NEVER.
You moved out of our hometown to another town and some time passed. I grew a bit more confident and one day I decided to visit and we went to watch a movie at the cinema. I still remember it like yesterday. Die hard 4.0 with bruce willis as the star of the show, but in my cinema seat i couldnt focus on the movie all i could think of was you and all the things i found so endearing about you. I was on cloud 9 so to speak but you perhaps didn't know how high cloud 9 was. You were and still are as gracious as ever though, after we both went home something must have changed your mind , I still dont know what but you finally said that you also saw me as more than just a friend and we agreed to see if we could make things work. Unbeknownst to you and how naive of me i was seriously planning our wedding, after one cinema outing. Which in hindsight i admit was silly but I was in love and had been for the longest time. And no not with the idea of you only, but you as a whole.
It lasted two months. Those two months were some of the most memorable two months of my life. I was flustered and so happy its hard to describe till this day. Until the dreaded text message came. I still remember it vividly. You said its not going to work out between us. I tried everything to convince you that we were soulmates. You didn't want any part of it. However i was still thankful for having you and our heartfelt connection. Thank you for the hour long phonecalls (even if some of those were awkward) and for the endless MSN conversations, it meant a lot to me and you made me feel important to you. Thank you for all the conversations and laughter and inside jokes we shared, you made my teenage years memorable and bearable. I will always be grateful for that.
We carried on talking just as friends for a long time after, and to your credit you NEVER blocked me or blacklisted my phone number although i would every now and again try to bring up my feelings for you. You were and still are so gracious. One day however i must have said or done something to really make you mad because you suddenly and without any warning blocked every avenue of communication. I was heartbroken. I turned to self pity and couldnt believe i lost you forever. The feeling is still hard to describe it was an intense overwhelming grief. I know most people dont mourn a friendship not in great depth anyway and perhaps i was mourning the loss of a potential spouse in my subconscious mind. My assignments at university started suffering and deadlines were not as important anymore. I know im not blaming you for that as i am quite competent and academically gifted but the fact I lost you overrid almost everything else. I missed you so much for such a long time and i picked up a habit of comparing every new girl i met to you all the while knowing that no one could be as warm, beautiful and graceful as you.
I still dont know what i did to make you so mad although you have tried explaining that it wasn't anything to do with me and you had so many other personal issues and problems. I have accepted your explanation and am sooo grateful you are back in my life now but sometimes i do still think to myself why didn't you just share and open up to me about your issues? Did you think i wouldnt help? I would have caught a bus, taxi, train and aeroplane if it would have meant i could relieve some of your burdens and i mean that from the bottom of my heart. Maybe you didn't want to be a burden on me, maybe you didnt consider our friendship that close, i don't know? Only you can answer those questions.
Did you also not think about me? That I was also going through a tough time and needed you? No matter the pain i felt at losing you I NEVER stopped thinking about you. I would spend hours online doing research and trying to do detective work. I befriended some of your university friends, not because i wanted to particularly get to know them, but because it gave me some (indirect) access to you. I made fake Facebook accounts seeing as you had blocked my account, just so i could still look at you and see how you were. Yeah i know it was sad. But that's how much you meant to me. Maybe i didnt leave as strong of an impression on you as you did on me, i don't know? I was only young i suppose, maybe if i was more worldly and could have organised cool stuff like radio station shout outs and personalised chocolate bars with your name on them rather than the mundane MSN convos and cinema outings, it would have helped? But i loved you because of your simplicity and modesty, there was nothing you needed to do to impress me. You just sitting in the school library engrossed in one of your books took my breath away every time.
I have always been fortunate so fate would have it that you would be back in my life once more. It was the 9th of April 2018. Exactly a decade after we lost touch. Were both in our early 30s now. Quite accomplished and both single as fate wouldn't have it any other way. Thank GOD my stutter and akward teenage goofball syndrome has disappeared. I can match wits with you now both offline and online and we have some of the most memorable conversations any two people can have, Without me sounding like im having a nervous breakdown.
Sometimes i still worry that i am not as important to you as you are to me, maybe its a remnant of the decade apart without any warning? Maybe its because you said to me recently that you could easily carry on without ever speaking to me again, and somewhere in my heart i believed you? I hope you didn't mean that by the way? I would find it incredibly hard to disengage from you, especially after the first time, it took me a long time to get over it. I hope you now love me as much as i love you, or at least can grow to the same capacity of love. Uneven relationships are not for me. I have also learned from our decade apart without warning of the fickle nature of friendship and that a friendship requires care, time,commitment and effort just as any familial ties with blood relatives would. Ive also now realised as an adult man that people come and go, but you was something special and i never forgot about you. I dont have any words to describe how special you are to me either but suffice it to say you are irreplaceable to me and our shared memories together i will always treasure and i look forward to creating more memories and private injokes.
We live some 300 miles apart in the same country though fortunately, and im still in awe of you. You have put your recognisable ponchos down haha but i would have still recognised you anywhere in the world. We now have a more mature relationship, the unrealistic teenage idealist me is well gone, were still as fond of each other as we were in our teens and yes i am proud to say this time without stuttering i still love you girl. You were and are my first ever love. My greatest love. This is to you, and hoping that our plans for marriage come to fruition.
Sincerely yours
You know exactly who i am.
