Cheesetastic

I've always been the kind of person that felt the need to show my affection for others by giving them material things. I guess it could've been seen as buying their love, but I always saw it as keeping their love. I thought I wasn't good enough to be their friend, that I didn't deserve the kindness or company they bestowed on me.

I remember in first or second grade...actually all of my initial elementary school years I would always use the money my parents gave me for candy or food to buy stuff for my friends. I'd buy them candies or lunch, and pretend I just did it because I had the extra money laying around. I never let them know I didn't eat or it was my candy I was giving them.

As I got older, around Jr. High and beginning of High School, I would spend my allowance the same way. On others. I wouldn't eat all week at school, save up money for a few weeks and then get different things for all my friends at the mall. Expensive things too. I would never buy myself any of that. I remember I got Pablo, the first boy I liked, a Calvin Klein cologne set ($80) and a Dragonball Z shirt he really liked from Journeys ($40). That was a lot of no lunches for Yari. I got my buddy Edil some Billabong swim trunks, a leather Volcom wallet and a Fox shirt ($150), just because. Pretty soon I realized no matter what I did, people would come and go...silly Yari.

As I got older, I started switching the gears in my head. I became this person who wanted to give people something to remember me by...a personal gift. Most of these are handmade, with references to inside jokes or something with a special meaning to the both of us. I tend to bake cookies and muffins, mail them with a card or a book to a friend. I'll write them a poem, or dedicate a short story to a memory I have with them. (Sir, Sir, step away from the pigeons =] ) Or maybe, just maybe, you've been close enough to me to have songs dedicated to you. They no longer play on the radio or in movies. No. Now, when I hear them, your face pops into my head and my love for you in my heart.

Last night I stayed up until 3 a.m. baking up a storm, framing a picture I took, filling out a card and listening through innumerable gigs of music finding the right songs to burn into 2 cds. I am exhausted and my back hurts from baking for hours. But I am sitting here smiling and humming in my head...because I'm so cheesy, I just can't help it.

Your sweet moonbeam

The smell of you in every single dream I dream

I knew when we collided you're the one I have decided

Who's one of my kind

~ Train