Starting at age 10, you're describing your crush and your feelings towards her/him, but every paragraph you get 5 years older. Today at school, I met a girl in our class. She looks so happy in class every day. She is so good at math and so good with people. I wish I’d spoken to her, but I was afraid. She is so bubbly and excited. She smells nice. Amy wore her cheerleading uniform under her lab coat in Chemistry because we have a football game today. Everyone is so impressed with her; she is social, smart, and pretty. We laugh together a lot. Sometimes she looks at me, and I think that she likes me, but I can’t be sure. I don’t want to mess up our friendship by telling her. I can remember that one time that we kissed in tenth grade. I’d bet her if I made her blush, she would have to kiss me. It was a total cop out because I was too afraid to just ask her on a date. After the kiss, everything went wrong for us. I only know that she is in the Nuclear Engineering program because I saw it on LinkedIn. Her picture on the site looks very professional, but not very happy. I wish we could laugh again. Amy has an internship with the government. She was going to join the Navy, but she developed a medical issue. During college we never talked, and now I occasionally hear about her from friends. I tried to reach out via text, but she gave me one word responses. I’m remembering when she won the school contest and leaped into my arms with a crushing hug. She had glee. We went out for dinner. We are both doing pretty well financially; she works at the power plant, and I type code. I wish we could be more. I don’t laugh like this often. Sometimes I think about her. I wonder what we could have been. She didn’t invite me to her marriage. Before she started a relationship with him, she turned me down. Why do I still think of her like this? She’s changed so much; I hardly know her. Her eyes… She has a kid now. I remember when she said that she didn’t want any. I guess being 40 she was afraid that she was running out of time. She seems stressed. -30 years later- I’m still in misery. I’ve kept up with her all this time. I read her publications; I see her success and joy. I am retired and alone. I try to read to escape, but even heroes and dragons can’t burn her image from my mind. What went wrong? Why wasn’t I enough? 60 years ago, I met the love of my life.