IMAGINE Magazine Question for 2/15 - "The Impossible Valentine"

[JeffsFort]

Valentine’s Day has a funny way of dragging every love we’ve ever had out of emotional storage—your very first crush who sat three desks away, the wildly impossible infatuation with someone who never knew you existed (or maybe even lived in another century), and even that earnest bout of puppy love that felt like a lifelong commitment, at least in the moment. Suddenly, hearts are thumping for reasons both profound and delightfully embarrassing, and we’ve all had our crushes; whether we'd like to admit it or not. So let’s lean into the chaos of affection, nostalgia, and wishful thinking and ask February's question:

If you could send a personalized Valentine to anyone (real or even a fictional!), past or present, who would it be and why? 💜

[Page Scrawler]

I would send a Valentine to my friend and childhood neighbor, Jesse. We weren't romantic, but he was the first person who made me feel loved unconditionally. He accepted me without question or judgment; someone who made me feel safe.

If my childhood was a stormy sea of emotional disregulation, then Jesse was my rock and my lighthouse. Though we fell out of contact several years ago, I'll always treasure my memories of him because of what he meant to me.

Edited January 17 by Page Scrawler

[JeffsFort]

I knew this was a bit of a loaded question when I wrote it. I mean to simply pick one person feels like intentionally leaving out a decent sized list of past heart breaks but, for this I will focus on one that I occasionally think of and remember because of the way he made me feel.

To add clarity, when I was a kid and my parents were dealing with one of the roughest points in their marriage, we would live out at my aunt's house with her three kids anytime they split up. They weren't actually related to us, my mother and theirs went to school together and simply became family. Just like our family, two boys, one girl, and all of the same ages and with 4 boys in the same house, there was plenty that went on at night, LOL! Ah, good times...

But one summer, a new family moved in right up the street. A couple with one son, we'll call him Chris for the sake of this post. He was like a year older than I was and totally looked like a surfer. Bronze tan, shaggy blond hair, rarely wore a shirt and had the rattiest looking sneakers but refused to wear anything else. I crushed so hard on him and when he started hanging out at our house, I went out of my way to keep his attention on me. We bonded over skateboarding and because I sucked at it, he would come over to make me skate more. I was all of like 12 years old at the time and had no real explanation as to why having his attention felt so urgent, but it really did and we got along so well that it didn't take much to hold it. Because there was sex play going on in the house, I really wanted to try to get him involved because, I guess I was a little pervert back then, LOL! But, I never got up the nerve to ask him and I really can't explain why. He did camp out with us a few times that summer and early fall. He fell asleep using my lap as a pillow watching TV a few times and twice I got to share a sleeping bag with him which meant I got NO sleep either time and totally didn't care. He was a serious addiction, for one year, then just as sudden as his family appearing in the neighborhood not even a full year earlier, they had to move again. I don't remember if we ever talked about why outside of it being his father's call but that last goodbye felt too fast, too soon. I moped around for quite a while feeling like I had been mugged or something for the longest time. Even to this day, just thinking of him and some of the stupid fun we had, I remember a little of what that crush made me feel back then, and really wish I knew where he was and what he was up to.

So, my impossible valentine would be that crush from so long ago. The one I only ever got up the courage to tell how I really felt in my imagination many times after he moved away. Well, that was one of the things we did in my imagination. Did I mention I was a little pervert? LMAO!