With a smile...

Even when I was little there were many boys that struck me as cute.

But then there was my first real crush.

I was in middle school--probably 8th grade--and it wasn't easy to utterly detest males at the same time as I was starting to find them very attractive. Boys, quite frankly, were annoying to me. They never thought before they acted and they always acted in the most immature, disrespectful way possible. At least, that was the image I had due to the majority of my male classmates.

And it is precisely because of this that I have very fond memories of my first crush.

You see, I didn't know him at all and yet he changed my view of the male population entirely--making it possible for me to be more generous with my classmates and to eventually put aside my grievances with males and see them for their strengths rather than their weaknesses. He deserves the credit, truly, and he did it all with one smile.

I saw this boy all the time--he lived in my neighborhood, mowed lawns on my street, and sat in the pew in front of my family in church. He and his brother (whom my sister and I thought wrongly for years was his twin) were cute, but seemed incredibly serious, and I had never spoken a word with them.

One day in church something was different. His family never turned around during the sign of peace, but this time he did. He looked directly at me, held out a hand, and smiled.

My heart definitely skipped a beat. He had the most beautiful smile I'd ever seen.

And that was it.

My crush lasted for two years on the basis of one smile.

Funny how much one smile can do.