Memory and Regret

I remember the first girl who ever had a crush on me. It was junior year in high school, and her name was Wendy. I haven’t thought about her in years, but with my current melancholy brought on by my marital difficulty, she has surged back into my mind.

I can remember how our mutual friends tried to set us up; she was a wonderful girl, bright and cheery with a smile constantly on her face. I fear I may have caused that wonderful, shining face to be clouded with tears, and in the years since, I have often felt a pain of regret over that. I was the stumbling, overweight outcast; so sure that I had something to offer, and so bitter that no one (of the female persuasion) seemed to recognize that in me. The irony is, the reason I rejected her was that she was overweight.

It is often said that youth is wasted on the young, had I known then what I know now, I would have responded when she tried to kiss me that spring day in her dorm room. Maybe, had I responded to that kiss, my life would have turned out differently and the next ten years of alcohol-induced pain and loneliness wouldn’t have happened.

I can’t even remember the name of the school she attended, much less what her last name was. I did keep the picture she gave me for years, until the last big effort by my disease to kill me lost me almost all of my physical possessions. If I close my eyes, I can still plainly see her bright, shining eyes peering out from beneath her short, blonde mop of hair and over that ever-present smile.

So Wendy, if you should ever read these words, and remember that spring day in 1984 in your dorm room in the school in Western Massachusetts, please forgive me my callousness. Understand that I had some serious suffering to go through in the years to come, so my rejection of you, I now see, was a kindness. I doubt you were the first woman I made weep, and I know you definitely weren’t the last. Still, your tears still haunt me.