They call it "Puppy Love" (for the best and worst reasons)

BLOGGING ABOUT WHATEVER

ENTRY - 13

TITLE: They call it "Puppy Love"

(for the best and worst reasons)

AUTHOR: J. William Bell

DATE POSTED: 2025-09-14

L.C. (that's my nickname for one of my Life Coaches), has continued to encourage me to think about and write about my "happy memories," because, inconveniently; they really do make it harder for you to continue being a miserable and gloomy grouch who saddens everybody close to them. As far as I know, I'm only supposed to be that kind of grouch every once in a while, instead of most of the time. So, let me tell you about the first time I seriously fell in love.

I'm not going to use her real name, because I believe that special Lady deserves some privacy. Also, I have literally not seen her in decades, so I have no idea if she would be pleased to learn that my memories of her have been put mostly into the "happy" zone of my mind. With that established, lets continue:

Her code-name, for this recollection, will be Mishu. Her family traced their history and ancestry back to India, so I believe it is appropriate to give her a name that could be used by a beautiful Indian Princess. For context, I should point out that we were both five years old, and we met in kindergarten class. So we dealt with romance the same way anyone who still has their innocence prior to puberty does: with simplicity and foolishness (but to be fair; a lot of people are foolish with love after going through puberty too).

Mishu has the honour of being the first girl I ever wrote a love letter to; technically-speaking; we were frollicking together during a recess and we stopped at one of the baseball diamonds we had on the schoolground. Nobody else was using it, so I decided to write some big letters in the sand while she watched me. Because I was more of a cheesy romantic then than I am now, I decided to write out a big-but-simple mathematic equation for her. It was:

"My Name + Her Name = a big Valentine-type heart symbol"

She liked it, we held hands, and frollicked some more. For the next few years, we were an unofficial romantic couple; I never told anybody about it. I don't know if Mishu ever blabbed about us to anybody, but I never had a really violent interaction with her older "bad-boy" type brother, or an awkward conversation with her parents, so, as far as I know, she was discreet with this relationship too... unless I did something that she thought was a profound romantic gesture. She would immediately let me know that she was pleased, and I felt happier because of that.

Then Grade 5 happened. Her family moved to a different county, which meant that she started going to a different school; and I had to pretend that I did not miss her. Becoming a popular target of bullies and having to spend most of my Grade 8 year homeschooling helped to distract me from the absence of my Princess. But those are details that deserve to be remembered in a future post, or not at all!

We met again, once and briefly, when we were teenagers. I recognized her and she recognized me, but I decided to pretend that I no longer loved her. My reasoning at the time was that due to my family's incurable poverty and my lack of options for improving my situation; also, not having a driver's license and access to a reliable car; caused me to rationalize that I could not be her available and affectionate boyfriend. I loved her, and I wanted her to be free, so that her heart could be open to somebody who could be there for her. So, I did some very convincing acting by portraying myself as someone who no longer carried a torch for one of the most exotic and fascinating young women I have ever known. I could tell that I broke her heart, and I'll probably regret that forever.

But I'll always treasure that season of my life when I discovered that my heart is a heart that can love. I owe this discovery to her: my "Mishu."

Excelsior!