I remember my first heartbreak, of realizing I liked someone more than they liked me. It was such a crushing feeling. I remember feeling so foolish for all my daydreaming about what it would feel like to hold his hand, or to have him call me on the phone. He was my pastor's son, Matthew. All the girls had a crush on him, and he was as cute, and nice. He didn't feel the same, and I had to face every Sunday knowing I had made a fool of myself. Even after moving, my family would still occasionally visit the church, and it felt like I was in 6th grade, all over again. I even ran into him at college one day, not knowing we were attending the same school. By that point, there was only the sting of what had happened, and not fresh wounds. He was never rude to me, it was more on my own that I had these awkward feelings. And for each new crush I would think of Matthew, and each new time someone didn't like me, I felt that same awkwardness...little did I know that those feelings would happen over and over again.
So, as to protect my heart, I tried like a fool to just get over it, move on, and not let it bother me. And in the process, I became incredibly shy when it came to liking someone new. To this day, I probably would not go up to someone and say something to the effect of 'Are you busy Friday night?'
In the current relationship I am in, I knew I had a crush before anything was ever said to him about my feelings. In fact, had he not kissed me first I would have just liked him from afar, and wallowed in my own misery whenever I thought about him, talked to him, or he happened to be in the same city as me.
It is in those earliest memories we form some sort of realization that maybe not everyone likes us. Maybe we are to the other person an equivalent of the opposite they are looking for. Maybe we can't express what it is that they didn't like, but it hurts none the less. Those earliest memories of a childhood heartbreak are often the hardest to get over, and the ones so much more remembered than the guys we thought about as an adult.
My son told me the other day he had a crush on a girl at school. In asking my advise, I had to remind him to be himself, to be nice (but not too nice to creep her out), to show his interest in her (but not to the point she felt he was staring at her all day in class). She is in his reading and math groups at school, he let her win a game of hoops, she asked him to dance with her at the Friendship Dance 3 weeks ago. She laughed at his jokes. And yesterday, he was so excited to tell me that he told her he liked her...and she said she liked him. Then today, after he asked her out, she declined.
He came home after school, went into his room, laid on his bed, and was very upset. To add to the wonders of childhood crushdom, his friends found out he had asked her out, and she said no, and he is now being teased.
I have had many heartbreaks over the years, plus a divorce. I have dated someone for 5 years only to be told he didn't think I was 'the one'. But never, in all my heartbreak, have I felt so bad as I do right now for my son. My son, the one who tells people I am 23 because that is my fake age. My son, the one who helps me out without question, asks if I am okay when I cough or sneeze, and watched me suffer through my own heartbreaks as much as I tried to not let him see. This is surely when heartbreak is even harder - when one of the people you would do anything in this world for is suffering, and not old enough to know things will be okay. But, in the end, I am not sure that has an age - that knowledge that tomorrow will come, the sun will rise, and carry on with or without you. It is better to be in the day, soldier on, so to speak, and not let those who taunt you see you are upset. It is better to still remain friendly with the person who has torn your heart out, allowing them to possibly see they made a mistake, but what's more - showing you are the same decent person you were before your world crashed, only a bit more bruised by ego.
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