A crush...

Did you ever have a crush on anyone? I mean one of those irrational if only he would realize he loved me too kind of crushes. I have to admit that I have had those in my life time. Of course, most of them were over some teen heart throb that I was enamored with at the time. Don't even get me started talking about the Bay City Rollers! Haha!

I also had an enormous crush on a kid in grade school. He was a quiet, broody type of kid with big brown eyes. He was kind of shy which just added to his 6th grade mystery! One day he came up to me on the play ground and asked me to meet him there after school so he could ask me something. OMG!! I was thrilled!!! I couldn't think for the rest of the day and when the time came to meet him I was there early! He came over to me and looked at me shyly which just made me sure he was mine, all mine!! Then he said, "Could you tell Liz that I kind of like her?" My heart dropped to my feet. Liz was my best friend. I told him I'd tell her and played it off like I was happy he liked her. Bullshit! I was devastated! My 6th grade heart was broken. That might have been the first time but certainly not the last.

I remember a sort of reverse crush that happened years later. I was on the Parish Council at a church I attended at the time. There was a new young priest there who was filling in because a permanent priest hadn't been assigned to our parish yet. A lot of people at the church thought this young priest was really something special. They talked about his charismatic personality and what a nice looking young man he was. Working with him on the council, I just thought he was a jerk. He appeared arrogant and full of himself and thought that just because he wore a collar he deserved some special modicum of respect without really earning it. I didn't like him at all. One evening, after the council meeting was just about finished, I asked him for some pamphlets I had been waiting for which needed to be distributed the following weekend. He said they were in the rectory. So he took off toward the rectory door with me following behind. I was thinking I'd get the pamphlets and go home. As we approached the door he stopped, turned and made a LOUD proclamation (so the other people standing nearby could hear) about how I was NOT to enter the rectory and how WRONG it was that I was following him (say what???) and how THIS SORT OF THING ALWAYS HAPPENS TO HIM, and how it will LOOK VERY BADLY IF HE WERE TO ALLOW ME IN THERE!! Now, here's the thing...I just wanted the pamphlets so I could get the heck home. I wasn't in the least interested in this putz and the idea that he even thought I was made me throw up a little in my mouth! Yish! What a jerk!! I walked away after I assured him that I was not in the least interested and he was mistaken about what I was doing there. I never did get the pamphlets either. There was no way I was going to ask him again. Now, years later, I was telling someone this story and they said, "Maybe he's the one who really had a crush on you!" I never thought of that. Maybe that was the case, I don't know.

Nah...he was just a jerk who was in love with himself! LOL

30 Letters in 30 Days...Day Two: the crush

Dear D. B.,
I was there, sitting on the floor in front of the television, watching The Midnight Special, and there you were. I was stuck on you from that first time I saw you.

You were special. I had never seen anything like you before, standing there, commanding that stage with your bright red punked out mullet, pale make up and glitter eyes. You sang like a bird, words that suddenly made sense to me. From that moment on, I was changed. So much so that the nuns at St. George Catholic School had no idea what to think of me when I walked into school with my usually shoulder length hair cropped into that shade and dyed red.

My mother would kindly tolerate my playing and replaying of that album. She never knew how much I loved you from afar. She never knew that, in those dark nights, long after she went to sleep, I would play that album and I would wish so hard I would actually become you. I was Ziggy, dancing on the imaginary stage, taking over the world, just like you.

Even now, I can honestly say, I stop in my tracks when I hear your voice. You've aged well. And the constant chameleon you are has made it possible for us to grow old together. Sure, you had some musical moments that I did not understand but, underneath it all, I knew that Ziggy would prevail and, usually, your next step in the dance would be better than the last.

So, there is it, for all the world or the two readers I have to see! You are and have always been my crush since that night in 1974 when I saw you on the Midnight Special. Long live the thin white duke!

Mary