He was into alternative music and she loved mainstream pop. He embraced the baggy clothes style of the mid-90s and she was a prep through and through. He was quiet and sweet-natured and she was outgoing and acerbic, though, later, she would realize that her true self was also quiet, as well. What they had in common, however, was their ability to just be together and enjoy the company of each other.

The girl liked the boy, but because he was friends with the boy she’d dated, she didn’t allow herself to feel everything she wanted to feel for him. One night, they drove around their small town and stopped by a store. There were beaded bracelets that came with the comment that if you made a wish on them and placed them around your wrist, when they fell off, your wish would come true. The boy, with a sparkle in his eye, suggested that the girl get the one in green. It matched his eyes exactly.

She shyly bought the bracelet and made a wish. Not for him, but that she would feel loved. There were many days in that time that she didn’t. She placed it around her wrist and waited. It was October.

A month came and went and the two remained friends. She showed him the places that she liked to go when she needed quiet and they did the things teenagers do. They went out and explored private property that had warnings like “If we catch you, we will shoot first and ask questions later.” They weren’t the smartest teenagers in the world. They explored places like cornfields and lay on their backs looking at the stars. He gave her piggyback rides through the rows and she laughed like a child.

One day, the two were at a school assembly and were, of course, sitting together as they always did. They were the best of friends and their other friends had noticed that they had become consumed by one another. In the middle of the assembly, she felt a tug on her wrist. The green bracelet fell off her wrist and she looked up into his bright green eyes. He smiled his easygoing grin and removed his hand from her wrist. “Now,” he said, “whatever you wished can come true.”

She blushed, because she was the shy sort at that time, and looked away. She may have mumbled something like, “We’ll see” and left it at that. He asked her to come over later that night and she replied that she would after her homework. When she got to his house, he was going down the hill on his makeshift snowboard with one of his friends. The powdery snow coated everything, like a wintery fairyland.

As she watched them go down the hill, she began to grow cold and couldn’t prevent her teeth from chattering. He walked up to her and softly moved the hair from her face and put his arms around her to pull her close. This wasn’t something new to her. He often held her close, as friends do. Something felt different about this time. He put his head into the small of her neck and told her that after the last run they would go inside and talk.

However, as anyone who has tried to snowboard realizes, the inexperienced often fall and he tumbled hard. As the wind was knocked out of him, she was already sliding down the slippery hill towards him, as was his friend. When she got to him, he laughed. She took his hand, helped him up and they went inside.

These are not the instances that I’m addressing. I’m addressing the first loves, the best friends, the close friends, the soul mates, the people that you meet on the street that do a kindness for you. These are the people that allow you to have a piece of their heart and with that you, in turn, share a piece of yours with them like a puzzle only the two of you have any hope of completing.

When we give this part of ourselves away, we do so at a large cost. There really isn’t any going back from that point. I remember my first love quite fondly, as he was a good friend before he was anything else to me. He was sweet, funny and shy. We talk online now and then, but what strikes me so much is that it has been so long and our feelings have healed to the point where I genuinely want his happiness in a way that I wish for what he wishes for himself. I think of old friends that I haven’t seen in years and wish the best for them.

I think this is where the popularity of social networking sites such as Facebook and Myspace come in. Of course there are people that want to “stick it” to the people that hurt them so long ago, but, overwhelmingly, the feeling I get about these sites is that it is more about healing and caring than anything else. We want to know how these people are doing and if they are well. Our reason for that is not always because of them: It’s because of us. It’s because they hold onto a string attached to our emotions that we haven’t quite clipped.

I can think back to my first real crush and smile fondly. I can think of my first best friend and laugh at some of the things we’ve done in our lives. I can think of the first time someone hurt me beyond repair. There are many spots that aren’t healed and there are many that will never heal. It’s up to me to decide whether I’m going to allow those strings to continue to move me like a puppeteer or clip them and free the strings up for new events in our lives.

The man who held the door for me the other day…the old woman who smiled at me when I was stressed out about finals…the way my dogs know when I’m sad and will just lay silently next to me…the way my sister hugs me when she hasn’t seen me in a while…