Crushed

His name was Chaim Dov Finkelstein.  We went to the same bungalow colony, when I was five and a half and he was five and I was madly and deeply in love.

He never noticed me.  Even when I flew by on my bicycle with my long, thick brown hair, floating behind me, like an exotic magic carpet to play with his neighbor, “Chaya Sora B, whose claim to fame was quite literal.  Her Uncle was a world- renowned singer, who had drifted off the path of Orthodox Judaism and I was fascinated. We would make prank calls from the rotary phone perched on the bleached wood of the walls in her “summer residence” (think the poorer man’s version of a trailer park).  The walls were so thin, that I just knew Chaim heard us composing our love songs.  Well, his mom did, because she would yell at us to “keep it down”.  Being ever so sensitive, I took It all to heart and I haven’t changed since then, thus my dating issues.

Every night, while my younger brother drove me insane, I would retreat inside my head (again, nothing’s changed), I would fantasize about lying next to the object of my desire in bed.  He would be wearing his Yellow Mickey Mouse Pajamas with feet; his lustrous blonde hair, parted to the side and slicked back with his blue eyes and dimples sharing a special “knowing” between us. When you’re five years old and puppy love hits, life is simple, pure and some might say “delusional”, but I call it “immaculate perception”.

As the summer progressed, so did my unrequited love.  I would daydream for hours, while on the swings.  He was my first and last thought of the day. The more he ignored me, the more enamored I became.  When I got the lead in “Shainarella”, I thought, that this would be my time to finally shine.  Chaim Dov wouldn’t be able to ignore me any longer.  Maybe he would even ask for my autograph?  My mother even gave me a horrible perm right before my performance, but I still looked like the princess I was playing, albeit, one who recently put her finger in an electrical outlet, The boy who played “Prince Charming” was half my height. (another thing that has seemed to plague my dating career). My stint on stage didn’t win me an Oscar.  It didn’t even get me a “Chaim” and when I saw the love of my life with his arms wrapped around an even older woman (she was 6), at the “after party”. I was crushed. I don’t want to sound like a witch with a “B”, but she wasn’t even pretty! Her name was “Leiba” and I hated her.

Decades letter, I was going through a very bad divorce and was living on top of a Shul in Woodmere.  There was a lovely blonde fellow who would help me, whenever there was an issue with the apartment.  He was a special soul who empathized with me as a single mom with sons who weren’t close with their dad.  He would tell me how his father died when he was a kid and how that loss had defined his life. I didn’t know his last name.   One day, he invited me and my kids to the “shul” downstairs on Shabbos. He was celebrating the birth of a daughter.  As he pressed a piece of paper with his name and phone number into my hands, I saw that his last name was “Finkelstein”.  I couldn’t resist,

“Wait, do you have a brother named “Chaim Dov”?”

“Yeh!”. He responded.

“I had the biggest crush on him, when I was a kid!  He’s probably Chasidic, married with ten kids in Lakewood!” 

(I, also, read tarot cards)

“How did you know”?.

“Oh, I just do”.

That weekend I saw my first love with his mom for the first time in a million years.  He was so shy, that he never even looked me in the eye.  

Sometimes, I wonder….”What if…?”:)