I’m a longtime lurker, and I’m use this as a catharsis and it will be a bit long.
I would describe Michelle as a crazy summer storm in my life. She hit me full force with a huge wave of emotions and tossed me around and leaving me a mess with her departure. She had this fiery brightness around her, where you just felt happy when she talked to you. She flashed a wicked smile that appeared in her eyes too. One of my favorite traits of hers were the wrinkles on the side of her eyes when she stared and smiled at me over her stupid potty jokes.
We met at the start of my full-time job and the start of Michelle’s internship. We were talking in the processing line, getting acquainted with each other and a cohort of college aged kids. After getting through the boilerplate of “where are you froms” and “which departments”, the topic of rock climbing came up. I had to jump on that and get everyone there to join our core climbing group, especially Michelle. She enthusiastically agreed, and that’s how we ended up bonding for the next month. Looking back, our friends could easily see the chemistry, but I was so intimidated by how charismatic she was. We would openly flirt, call out each other’s butts and other crazy poses we made scaling the wall. I would get butterflies when Michelle made a funny quip and made eye contact with me to confirm I heard. After a month of dm’s of her asking about exercise advice and my ranting of everything fitness, I decided to take a chance and ask her to a date.