Move on, Casanova.

I've never been much of a Casanova. I did start noticing girls in kindergarten, though. I know I had a crush on a girl, but I can't remember either a name or a face(I do remember the crush I had in first grade ... Alicia Castro, if you're out there in the cyberworld, this post goes out to you). I do remember drawing her a doodle and waiting until we all walked out for recess to put it on her desk. When she got back, she picked it up and threw it on the ground. Good way to start the game, me.

I started dating late in life. Everyone else had been hooking up for years before I ever did. Yes, ladies and gentleman, I had my first girlfriend in eighth grade. We started going out the Wednesday right before Thanksgiving break. I forgot to get her number so I had no way of calling her; all break-long I mulled over the fact that for the first time in my life I was no longer single.

You see, this was a pretty big deal to me. I remember thinking that if I ever did get a wife, she would sit around all day and I would do all the work. I'd show her how awesome I was (and grateful, I suppose). I had taken my first step toward the realization of this goal.

Let's fast-forward, oh, a week-and-a-half, shall we? Having "hung out" with Darcie (that was her name, keep up with the story, jeeze) for quite some time (maybe ten days[not counting weekends]), I was quite shocked to receive a letter in homeroom that started "we need to talk..." Unfortunately, that was the high point of the letter. She broke up with me in letter-form, passing it through maybe eight people's hands before reaching me. Oy. Well, it was the eighth grade, so you can't really blame her.

I was crushed. Ha, not really. I didn't have enough time to really get attached to her. I did, however, get to know her best friend during that blitz of a relationship. We started dating a few months later.

Maybe I am a bit of a Casanova.

It pains me to say that this relationship that I'm about to divulge is arguably my most involved relationship to date (no pun intended.) Melissa and I started going out in the middle of eighth grade and I finally broke it off Christmas time Sophomore year in high school. Two years. Having a two year relationship isn't that noteworthy, but mind you, it started in eighth grade. By the beginning of my sophomore year, I had friends asking me if we were going to get married.

At 15 years old. Married. Bah.

This is when I started rethinking this whole thing. Melissa moved away after eighth grade to a small town an hour's drive from where I lived. Roughly, this translates to not seeing each other often, going months at a time without seeing each other. Early on I noticed an air of conflict that always hung around her, but, hey, I was back on the road to my fantasy husbandship so I ignored it. Until one friend said something along the lines of "Two years? You guys are practically married. Are you gonna get married for real?" It was then that I started looking back at all of those signs I missed along the way.

The kicker was homecoming. I never liked school dances, but we went because that's what couples do, they go to dances. So sophomore year I dress up my nicest, stupid suit and my parents and I go pick her up (oh how I pine for the days before ownership of my own driving ability). We go to the stupid dance, meet up with her old friends that don't really care about her anymore and I've tried to keep up with just to appease the old lady.

Invariably, someone would walk by unknowingly oblivious to how close they came to death.

She'd see these people (well, girls, she apparently had no beef with the dudes) and cuss them out under her breath over things that they had done two years earlier.

Excuse me?

Two years ago? You're seriously holding onto someone blowing you off 24 months ago? Wow. Wowee wow wow. Who knew you could hold such a grudge for so long? Okay, if one of the girls had, say, slipped sulphuric acid into her milk at lunch, that would be one thing. I'd accept a short sneer.

The moral of the story: MOVE ON! Don't hold on to things that make you upset. We're only here for a short time; the fact that you're angry at a person for so long only steals life from you. The other person probably doesn't even know you're upset, so they're doing just fine. Learn to grow. Get everything you can out of each day.

Suck the marrow from the bones of life. Don't cuss the bone out because it was talking to your boyfriend after second period.