In August of 2002 I met what I thought was the most beautiful girl in the world, Maria Rodriguez. WOW! At the time   one of my best friends was Dave Smith. It was he who introduced me to this beautiful girl , this beautiful young women ……As his girlfriend!
 Immediately I was heart struck. She was so Joyous, so happy, so friendly so loving. The fact that she was cute in a sexy way was an after thought. I was so over whelmed I remember being worried that I would fall into a trance starring into those beautiful loving blue eyes. So I  made an effort to look at the ground as much as I could with out being obvious or openly rude. I still have a mental picture of the gray dirt beneath my feet in the high school court yard and the numerous shoe prints in it. I was so full of joy and energy it was literally suffocating to hold it down.
   I do not remember what was said but I remember the relief I felt after the bell rang to go to class Once I allowed my feelings to come up it was the first time I can remember smiling for so hard for so long sine I was probably three or five years old in a tickle fight. And still I smiled longer , I must have had that doped up looking smile on my face for three hours or more before I awakened from an absolute stupor of just being so high off my own joy then excitement that I had stuffed down just while I was seeing her that morning.
 She had real beauty. She seemed so comfortable, so genuine that she could have been butt ugly and three hundred pounds and I still would have fell for her.
 It did not take long after I came down from the high for me to realize the predicament I was in. She was with a very close friend of mine and that was a problem  in many ways. First, Dave was a good guy so she may be locked up to him and married one day. After that even if she did split with Dave at some point she probably wasn’t going to hook up with one of his good friends afterwards for fear of an awkward situation and splitting up close friends.
   I was already on my way to becoming an unhappy ,frustrated and depressed individual. So one of my first thoughts after processing this information was “could god be so cruel as to show me a piece of heaven and not allow me to reach for it?”. All because Dave got her first ? As you can tell the whole thing felt very dramatic on my part and therefore was very exhausting. But strangely I didn’t mind, because I was in love. And I felt like the\at could be  the most important thing a person could be could do was be in love.
  On the other hand I wanted to and did love  my friends as brothers and that too was extremely important to me. Upon making this revelation I realized the only way to love them both was to support them in their own happiness. Unless I have forgotten something I feel I did.
  My best friends at the time and me  would hang out six or seven days a week and Maria  frequently visited. I think now maybe all the guys had a crush on Maria  before too long. I mean she was friendly social had a beautiful body and a smile to die for. It wasn’t long before we realized she had a high sex drive to boot, I mean there are few men who wouldn’t like her. And even fewer teenagers.
  I am not sure how it all went down but I am pretty sure come Christmas her and Dave had split. There were accusations of Dave carrying on with some other girl. To this day I am not sure it was as serious as it was made out to be. I felt I knew Dave and gauging his reactions  I don’t think he was doing was he was supposedly doing. Maria split with him none the less.  

As I remember it, the night was cold and both of them were in tears. I recall Maria  coming to me at one point still  with tears in her eyes asking for me to hold her to give her a hug. So I held her tight and for a moment I wished I never had to let go of her ever again .But brief it was because again if I loved them both this was neither the time nor the place to consider my feelings. This was a tough time for them not me. I wanted so bad to tell her how I loved  her, that everyone loved her., that it was going to be ok no matter what. And that I wanted to hold her. Again I do not recall exactly what I said but it was again frustrating on my part to have to sensor my true feelings.
      
         I think someone tipped her off if she couldn’t already tell that I “really really liked” her and it was made clear in a group setting to all of us that she couldn’t date any of us guys. But I knew it was meant for me. Even though she did a good job of working it into casual conversation. It was shortly after that she hooked up with a guy I only knew as Matt. I had never seen nor heard of the guy before and all I knew was that he was several yeas older than I. I had become annoyed with school and more depressed with other issues. I was failing at becoming a football player and my desire for Maria  Rodriguez was becoming dangerously close to a full time obsession. I wanted to be happy and here I was thinking my key to happiness was Maria . Yet it was a forbidden unavailable and very dis intested key to happiness .

 The new year started if my recollection is correct e saw a lot less of Maria . She was frequently absent from school and I don’t remember seeing her come around to our Parties any more like she did with Dave and even right after she broken up with Dave. She seemed to be becoming a lot less happy and it wasn’t long after that I found out she was engaged to be married to matt.

 Again I had to deal with cope with this sense of agony this sense of grief the sense “I cannot have” came over me. I was absolutely insane for this girl. I tried looking around for another just to escape but  it was no use. None compared to Maria Rodriguez in my mind.
  Come spring probably April or so I was beginning to really do poorly in school. I look back now and se by this time I had lost myself. I started asking “why am I alive” and thinking none of my principals were worth it. Perhaps I needed to be more cut throat and no more of this nice guy shit, nice guys finish last ect. But that wasn’t me  and by the time end of the school year I as ready to have a total mental collapse/crisis. The most prominent thoughts were of Maria  Rodriguez and wishing to see be with  Maria and my friends were what I had and what  I was. Even if I could only dream of Maria  she was that important to me.
 That summer my mother and brother moved back up from the gulf coast. And my mother promised  my brother he would never have to go back to the local schools . So when my brother moved in with my eldest sister in Slidell I decided to join him.
  I had got the impression that  two of my best friends , Dave and Critter would be returning for the 10th grade year. My other best friends were in different grades than I so I thought If I really tried I could runaway from my troubles in school thoughts of Maria  and a failed football campaign by going to Slidell to live with my brother and d sister . And maybe I could try again at football with out the distraction of smoking weed with friends and my thoughts of Maria .

 As I started for the gym I noticed in my most extreme fatigue I would reference Maria not football for an additional boost in strength and stamina. At night I would long to one day see Maria . I would imagine that beautiful smiling face again. I would feel extreme sorrow when I would think of her recent decline in happiness and troubles I had heard about. I would wish I could be her hero and all sorts of I deas of how I should try to reach out to her even if it was just someone for her to talk to when she was down in the dumps. To just be a friend. To just tell her I loved her and I would be there for her no matter what. Even if I could never touch her face, kiss her lips or make love to her I thought if she knew I loved her it would help.” if only she knew how I loved her “I thought. I thought” If someone could know that someone would always be there for them, would never judge them harshly shouldn’t it ,isn’t it that good enough ? Shouldn’t this make someone truly happy? To be truly loved and to know it?”
 
I worked vigorously  trying to shed my fat body frame so that if I did see her again I would have no reason not to pour my heart out and plea with her to let me show her how I loved her. I had only been in the gym  full-time   about eight weeks when there was a fight /argument in the family and me and my brother were no longer able to stay at my sisters place for the coming school year.
 
 In order to uphold he promised to my brother my mother rented a trailer in another town Poplaville and I followed my brother and my other sister there. I was again hoping to play football and get a fresh start out look. But I ended up dearly missing my friends already and I was very sore about it. And  I had not escaped my thoughts of Maria . In fact they intensified. The thoughts had since become a lot of pain and a minute amount /very little joy.
 
  The first day at poplar ville high I was very tense and uncomfortable. I didn’t like the new social hierarchy and I missed my friends. Dave, Critter, Tony, Maria,  and even Cody. That afternoon I was supposed to stay after school with the football team. The trouble was I didn’t know it and when the buses left in the afternoon I was still watching the team practice. I was stuck out in the sun burning to a crisp with virtually no water and I dehydrated and was badly burned. I was so bad off when I got to the trailer we had rented  I drank nearly a gallon of water immediately. We were supposed to be cleaning the home so we could move everything in and I was not willing to co operate. I was sick burned and probably already had fever. When my mother snapped at me I snapped for good like the straw that broke the camels back I cracked . Though it was more like shattered in to an explosive rage.

 Probably the most powerful words that have ever come out of my mouth to  this day still ring clear “I QUIT!”. “You quit what?” she answered.  “EVERYTHING!” I replied “ Everything!…”
And so my world crashed and after a few weeks of wars fights and refusing to go to school I decided I needed to re build but never again would I be the same I thought. What I had done thus far was a complete waste. It got me to the deepest pits of sadness and madness. All I knew for certain was that I was going to do things different. I knew that I was quitting the old ways of doing things.  

  The next few months were  dark. I put on sixty pounds or more and while I was changing for the better overall , I also got to see just how bad I was and that saddened me.  

  I tried psycho therapy, psycho medicine , psycho wards and none of it helped . None of those people could help me. They didn’t know what to do. All they knew how to do was give me drugs to suppress my feelings. Now I know why a doctor has a “practice” because they don’t know.  

  By the time December 2003 rolled around I knew I would be going back to school in Picayune come January. I had come across the release technique my eldest sister had it I found it really helpful and thought I could pull my self together using it. To make a short explanation of it is a way to relax and let go of negativity.  


   One night I was in the gym with my long time friend from child hood Danny when Dave comes in. I was glad to see him until he said he had hooked back up with Maria . Strongly eerily, the whole time he was talking I had no Idea who he was talking about. When he left  I asked Danny who he was talking about, Maria  who ? At first Danny replied “you know ,Maria ”. I said “no, Maria  who?” . Then he said “Maria ,Maria  the one you liked .” . Finally it hit me and when it did I realized the Dave had been talking about Maria  like a piece of ass . Not the wonderful young women I had fallen for. I was pissed off so bad I exploded. I lifted more weight that night more time than I ever had or ever have since.  All the suppressed feelings and thoughts about Maria  came crashing back. The adrenaline let me push my self too far and immediately after I burned it off my body was in terrible pain from all over the lifting. So after three months of successfully suppressing feeling about Maria  it turned out to be pointless because it all had come back.

  I started back in picayune High in January 2004 fatter than ever ,almost 80 pounds fatter. I had a lower self image than ever. It was all made so much worse when the first person I see is a girl that really liked me  back in spring 2003 because I was still hung up on Maria . I looked like shit and I felt like shit.

  Through the spring semester of 2004 I tried to date a girl so I could replace my old feelings for Maria .  My feelings for Maria  were the only thing I felt like I  hadn’t really chipped away at during my time away from school in the fall. It didn’t work though none of them liked me in the slightest. I wasn’t cute and my efforts half hearted. I did see Maria  occasionally since she and Dave were back together. The thing was I didn’t see Dave much. He wasn’t in school anymore and had moved. I was too young to be driving legally so I couldn’t go see him often. He was also doing drugs I wasn’t fond of so with out realizing it I shied away from him.

By the end of the spring 2004 semester I was sick of school. I didn’t really struggle I just didn’t like it. I had less friends and attitudes around were changing. Tony and most of my other friends were set to graduate and I would be left with really only one even kind of close friend to hang out with. I was 15 so I couldn’t get out of school yet  but I figured Next semester when I was 16 I could if I was smart about it.

  That summer I decided to try to do some objective soul searching as to why I felt I needed to have her. Why did I desire a romance so much? I needed to look at this whole situation from a new angle and it started to come to me that everyone runs into this issue or a similar one at some point and I was going to look for people I thought dealt with it successfully. That proved to be impossible because anyone who had been in that situation I could find won the guy or girl they wanted or emotionally died trying. Again I wanted an answer but this time I was determined and I think I found it.

  I realized that , like everyone else on the planet, I wanted love. I wanted her love from her. Furthermore I realized that wanting someone or some thing from another was not loving. Exciting occasionally it was. But it was mostly painful. And too take it a step further it was and is actually hateful . Think about it. I am convinced I only have  one orange and you want  me to give it to you. But I want to give it to someone else. In love you will want someone to have what they want even if it doesn’t suite you.  

  So I looked up some new definitions for love  I looked for where love and happiness come from. It had been suggested to me that you can only feel you own love. And that one is happiest when one loves not when one wants love or even is being loved. And as I examined it, it proved true.  

  Now I will not stand here and tell you I never make the mistake of wanting to be loved. Even though I see the truth of how wanted love works, wanting love is a deep almost sub-conscious habit we have and takes a determined effort to practice breaking ourselves of such a habit.  

  As for my feelings about Maria , they still sometimes come up. But now I can stop, look at them ,and  let them go because I know the true nature of those feelings and I know those feelings are not of love. If anything the desire for, the want to have that person for yourself , is selfish. So why not  truly love someone and let them have it their way. It feels so good to love rather than desire someone. It is so much more comfortable. And when or if a person ever does need you for something, your mind and heart is clear so you can help  and be there for them best.

  If you and I could totally break these old habits and love as god loves as Jesus loves. A love with out judgment, a love of all equally ,the world would be a perfect place. We need not theses silly games of romance they only hurt ones relationship they never help. Even if it feels like a happy attachment all the other person has to do is betray you or do something to yank the carpet out from under you and you fall on your ass. So truly love. As god loves.

  I don’t think this is a typical happy ending to a romance or  a storybook, but a happy ending it is. No doubt about that.