a sweet treat

My first year of high school I was madly in love with a boy named Robert. Robert was tall and lanky, had big brown eyes, and long, shiny hair. He was smart, he was funny, he was idealistic, and he was creative.  But he was also shy. Really shy. Boy, was he shy. He was so shy, that he was completely oblivious to my affections.

Fast forward 30 years. I've long since lost touch with Robert, and in fact, all my high school friends. Then along comes this amazing tool: Facebook. I join, and all of a sudden, I can surround myself virtually with people who remember me when I too, was young, creative, idealistic and kind of shy. And one of the people who pops up is Robert. He's now happily married, and living in Australia. Australia!

When Robert first friended me, he wasn't sure that I'd remember him. But come on, who forgets their first crush? This far removed from high school, I had no trouble telling him so. And he said he wished he'd realized back in high school how I felt, and that he hadn't been so shy. Which even 30 years later, is a nice little boost for my ego.

Now here's the fun part. Back in February, another FB friend and I were bemoaning the fact that neither of our husbands had gifted us with chocolates on Valentine's Day. Sweet Robert, from all the way in Australia, offered to send us some of Oz's best chocolates (which, he claimed, are vastly superior to America's). For Anna, it's a way to jokingly make her husband sit up and take notice. For me, he said, it's a gift 30 years overdue to the first girl whom he knows had a crush on him.

The chocolates arrived in New York this week. And I'm not sure if they're superior to what we have here in the States, but they were pretty wonderful. I, being a loving wife, shared mine with my husband, which strikes me as ever so slightly perverse. Chocolates from my first love (even if it was unrequited), decades later, shared with my current love ... there is something the tiniest bit twisty about that. But then again that's how I like my life best: a little bit sweet, a little bit twisted.