| "The Starting point of love"
Through The Years: First Love Contest Winner: Dustin Burson, Age 19. Newton, Kansas I was dating this girl the year of 2001, and first part of 2002. It was a big mistake. This story is not about her however. It is about the young lady with red hair, that I confided in when the girl I was dating moved away. This girl is extremely special. I'll walk you through from the first day, to a day near today. It was January 25th, 2002 at the winter home coming. The girl I was dating was dancing with her friends, and I was sitting at a table when this red headed lady came up to me and asked me to dance with her. Of course with it being a high school dance, she tried to pull me out of the chair I was in at the same time of her asking me. My girlfriend at the time saw her pulling me and came over, and yelled at this girl, and scared her away from me. I was so mad at my girlfriend for being so rude; that after the dance we got into an argument that lasted for several days while we were together. During these days she told me sadly that her and her parents were going to move to North Carolina. (Sorry to interrupt, but this was really a blessing from God. If I only told you the whole story… which I'm sure, is to come at a later date, you would understand why. Another FYI, it would defiantly be rated R.) As it turned out I was going through old E-mails that I had in my yahoo email account, and found an email from the girl I knew as the red head. Apparently in the summer of 2001, my girlfriend was stalking her, and using my email address, along with other means of contacting the red head. Talk about my ex being a psycho bitch. I sent an email to the address from the red head, telling her that my girlfriend was moving to NC, and asked if she would like to hang out some time. Surpassingly enough, the red head emailed me back, and our friendship started. It was the end of January, and I still had a couple more weeks of emailing back and forth before I actually was able to hang out with her. My ex left Feb 15th, 2002 to NC with her parents. Strangely she didn't cry at all. Anyway enough of the EX girlfriend during the early days of my love experience. I was at the red heads house one night, and she asked if I would like to stay for dinner. Not knowing what to expect, I accepted the offer, afraid to meet her father. What I did not know at that time was that he traveled a lot, and that she basically lived by her self in the small 2-bedroom house. As the night went on, we watched TV, Star Trek Voyager to be exact. I was so happy to find out that she too was a Star Trek fan, actually more of an enthusiast. Soon enough I found myself going to her house every day for the hour of Voyager, on UPN Kansas Channel 6. Before the show came on she would have me read some over her poems. Nothing deep just stuff that she could share with anyone. But after I found out that she had practically written a novel, I had to read it. (Unfortunately since this is true, I don't have permission to include the names of the poems, characters, or titles of the novel's she has written.) I nagged, and nagged at her for a few days, till she finally gave in, and let me read a few chapters. The few chapters I read had me almost to tears, as they were about a tragedy that had occurred in the story. After telling her how GREAT the story was, she started to open up more to me, and she let me read one of her more secretive poems. All of her poems touched me in one way or another. And with me reading these poems, she grew to trust me with more about her life. After about a month of hanging out at her house, she showed me pictures of her family, and friends from past towns that she use to live in. During the picture showing, her cat attacked me. Her cat was a strange one… always pouncing on your feet, and your arm, as you just sat there, still as can be. Also always leaving marks on my arms as I left each night. Since about the third week of hanging out with the red head at her house, I started to get strong feelings for her. Not an urgency feeling of needing to date her, but a feeling that I had never felt before. From a deep, deep dark hole inside me that I didn't know was there. Not a bad hole, just a hole that the feelings had climbed out of. Kind of like a flower starting to sprout with the rain showers. It was about two weeks before my 18th birthday, when my girlfriend called me on my cell phone trying to argue. "You have 2 choices Dustin Shay. Either me or your Dollar whores." Said my girlfriend. Well lets just say, she was no longer my girlfriend after that, but she has this thing with stalking people over phones. The weeks flew by, and the next thing I knew it was my birthday. The red head gave me a card, and made me an excellent dinner. She was quit the cook. Making the best stews I've ever had, even if they are a little hot sometimes. A couple of days after my birthday we actually sat on the same couch together, and reclined. (It was one of those reclining couches.) During a commercial somewhere around that time period I started to tickle her feet, and she in retaliation would throw her cat on me, or kick me off the couch onto the floor. Most of the time though after we were more comfortable I would sit on the floor, and a few times she would rub my hair. But that was a mistake, because one day she said I needed a hair cut, so she gave me one. I hadn't had such short hair in several years, and it took me a couple of months to grow it back. I have to say this though. She is the first person I had ever trusted with my hair, other than the lady that had been cutting it since my first hair cut in 1985/86. The next week after that, she had the crazy idea of making us look like we had gotten into a fight, and take pictures of it with her Polaroid camera. Well, the red in my hair didn't work out to well, but the face job she did on me looked great. Her delicate touch did the thing. Let me tell ya, when you can get to be such good friends with a girl that she puts makeup on you, you KNOW your close friends. The pictures came out ok, but not as good as they did in person. When I got home that night my mom asked me whom I got in a fight with. It was now close to the end of April. Guess what I got at the end of April. (I bet you can't guess.) I got news that my grandmother from Sterling, KS had died. My life was just starting to go back uphill, and then right back down again. I guess you could call it a roller coaster. That night I went over to the red heads house, and broke down. She comforted me, by talking to me, and rubbing my hair. Something about the head thing that just takes away so much of my stress. After that night I knew she cared for me, I was just unable to comprehend just how much she cared. It was around the middle of April that she had informed me that she was moving away to a (Lets say a secret place) right after school was to get out in May. So I knew that the next few weeks would be crucial if our friendship was to survive the distance. The next few and last weeks of our time together, we tickled each other, chased each other around her house, and sat side by side watching TV. The amazing thing about ALL of our time spent together, we never once went to a movie together, hugged, kissed, held hands, or went out to eat. The time I had spent with her is time that I will cherish for my entire life. To have a friendship, so strong in fact that not even boyfriends and girlfriends relationships get anywhere close to as strong as ours is. I now can only talk to her on the phone, and online, but I think that the distance has made us each realize how important we are to each other. She trusts me with almost all of her personal life, and I trust her with all of mine. And of course that means personal details as well. When most people say they love someone, they have no idea what love is. I used to say I love you to my ex-girlfriend while we were dating. But now I truly know the meaning of what TRUE LOVE is. "We never dated, and never considered it, but in some ways we are closer than any girl/boyfriend could be. We both feel our souls are connected by our friendship. Both of us are cautious when it comes to becoming closer with other human beings, and in that mutual uneasiness, we can cry in front of each other and talk about things no one else ever hears." This quote is off a website somewhere. If you know what site it is, then you will realize something that you would never find out by asking someone about me. I thank you for reading the story about my start of an enduring love for someone. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did writing it. Sometimes the heart doesn't paint a clear picture, or write clearly either at that. But all of this story is from my heart. I thank God for putting me on this earth to find out what true love is, and for showing me how to let it grow with time. I thank God even more for putting the red head on this earth, and I pray that he keeps my red headed sweetheart safe from illness and dangers. God Bless you (The reader), ©2003 Dustin Shay Burson |