Rest In Peace.

In a time before I had smoked my first cigarette, long before I had learned to process feelings of any kind, I fell in love. I know what you're thinking because we all had crushes when we were kids, but I assure you this was no crush. This was the type of love that most adults would consider creepy and obsessive.
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 My radio sat beside my bed in my tiny bedroom, and each night, I would lay in bed staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on my ceiling, and listen to AM106's Top Ten at Ten. Often, the ten songs would be the same as the evening before, sometimes in a different order, but one night, a song I had never heard came on the radio. It was Kris Kross' Jump, it was non-threatening and catchy, and I was instantly head-over-heels.
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The next day, I found myself at the corner store, snatching up teen magazines with reckless abandon, hoping to catch a glimpse of the guys I had heard on the airwaves the evening prior. Every other page was a Kris Kross pictorial, and I was in heaven. My closet was soon plastered with posters, and I had decided that the last name 'Kelly' would suit me fine. I often stood in the mirror, with my Ikeda jeans on backwards, hoping that one day I could get the courage to shave stripes in my eyebrows. One day, I would say to myself.
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That summer, I found myself feeding quarters into a phone booth in Washington State while I listened to pre-recorded messages about Kris Kross. The hotline was only open to American citizens, and was the first thing on my list, even above obtaining Fruit Stripe Gum, when I crossed the border. My heart sank a little when one of the guys didn't personally pick up the line.
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I had no idea how far away Atlanta was from Calgary, and I didn't care. Chris Kelly and I were meant to be. I wrote a letter, and got a pre-signed glossy in return, which still sits in the basement of my house somewhere, along with a VHS from when Kris Kross was on A Different World and I had to get my tonsils out, and about a million notebooks filled with hand-drawn arrows and hearts.
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I was sad when I heard yesterday that Chris Kelly, my first love, had passed away at the young age of 34. I guess after all of the stuff that I have survived in my own life, I often forget how fragile we all are. The world is a fucked-up place, and very few of us last as long as we should. 

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No matter how delusional and awkward my love was, it was pure and real and probably more meaningful than most of my adult relationships, and in my heart, I still hope that I can get up the courage, one day, to wear my pants backwards in public.

~sarah p.