My Elusive Mychele

“My Elusive Mychele” by Ken Strong First love. I’ve been told that you never forget it. I guess my question is can you ever get past it? If it is “true” love and if that person is your “soul-mate” then is it possible to move on and to find that kind of love ever again? For many years now I have shared random stories about one relationship that changed my life forever. Now, I find myself at the edge of forgetting the fine details of the many moments that we shared. I thought it might be best to chronicle them here, before they left me completely. The truth is I used to consider myself a hopeless romantic. Now, I am wondering if the romantic part has faded, leaving me helplessly hopeless. Nonetheless, the love that I write about here was, and is, more true than any emotion that I have ever experienced. The details of our stories may fade with time but the impression that this one relationship left on my heart is timeless. I’m not even sure it’s as much about Michele, the girl, as it is about the power of that first love. Regardless, this is the true story of Michele and I. It was a whirlwind romance that spanned less than a year of actual dating. However, it undoubtedly left a lifelong impression on me. Nice Skates To paint the opening “picture”, I guess I must do a bit of explaining as to who I was at the age of twenty-one. I had always been a creative kid and growing up I plugged that creativity into performance art as an illusionist. I had experienced great success in performing since the age of eight and I had just landed my third consecutive summer contract for my own show at an amusement park in central Indiana. I always kept myself busy and during the winter months, where our story begins, I found myself prepping for the upcoming show season while working two jobs and remaining very active as a volunteer EMT/Firefighter for the rapidly growing community that I lived in. My full-time job had me working the night shift as a security officer for the formerly known Indianapolis “Hoosier Dome”. But before I would begin my 11:00 p.m. shift as a security guard I would spend four to six hours on the ice across the street, at the Pan American Plaza ice rinks. I was head of first aid and safety at the rinks, which typically just meant I got to wear one of those cool red skate guard jackets. Most evenings were pretty uneventful; yelling at the guys in the hockey skates to “slow down”, helping up those people that they had knocked down, and treating the occasional bruised knee or sprained ankle. However, it was there, on that very rink that my life would change forever. You know those moments in your life that are time stamped and dated with every intricate detail? You can remember the place, the time, the mood, and you can retrieve and relive it all in your mind many years later? The night was February 4th during the “evening skate” session. I was doing my normal skate guard duty when a new face caught my eye. And this girl wasn’t like the others…she didn’t wear rentals, she had her own pearly white figure skates ☺ I think I checked her out for a lap or two before I felt bold enough to make my move. Then, in my red skate guard jacket, I built up enough confidence to deliver that first line. I leisurely skated up close enough to engage in direct eye contact as I uttered the words “nice skates”. OK, so it was cheesy, but it worked! Because I remember the exact spot on the ice that my breath was taken away as those words prompted the warmest smile I have ever witnessed. I don’t remember the exact words that immediately followed. But I remember the feeling of looking into her eyes, the glow that radiated from her inside to her beautiful outside, and the sound of the sweetest voice I had ever heard as she told me her name was “Michele”. Yes, that’s Michele with one L. I always thought that was special, that one L. Over the next several months I would realize how special Michele truly was. Life As We Knew It So after that first night of casual conversation on the ice my thoughts were never far from Michele. She returned to the rink to skate by my side time after time, one phone call led to next, we had one amazing dinner date after another, and before long I was officially calling Michele “My”chele. I must take a moment to explain that I have an extremely creative cheesy side when it comes to dating. I love to play on words, create a personal private language, and have lots of little inside innuendos. That’s one thing that struck me about Mychele, I could unapologetically be my goofy self and she loved it! In fact, we created our own little language based on my radio codes at work. As a firefighter and working in security there are a series of codes used during radio communication called “10-codes”. These codes and signals involve a series of numbers such as 10-23 (arriving the scene), 10-8 (available for another call), Signal-9 (disregard), etc. It provides a way to have short, confidential, and concise communication when transmitting over the radio. So, one very slow and boring evening on the night shift, based on these 10-codes, I created a list of “Ken-Codes”. These codes became our own covert language that she and I would use during phone calls around family, friends, or in public places. I can only remember a few Ken-Codes but I will never forget the two that we used most…Signal 3 (I love you) and Signal 4 (I love you too). On March 13th I told Mychele that I loved her for the first time, and those words came from a part of my heart that had never been explored before. From that moment on I’m not sure we ended a telephone conversation or letter without a Signal-3. We rarely said the words “I love you”, but relied on our own special language. After all, everybody was using the “I love you” words. Signal-3 was more than those three words…it described that unique love that only she and I could experience together. Another key to our unique conversation was hand written cards, letters, & notes. Sometimes they were mailed but most of the time they were exchanged the next time we would have a Signal-15 (that’s Ken-Code for rendezvous). When we met Mychele was 18, completing her senior year of high school, and I was 21. We actually lived about 45 minutes away from each other. Cell phones were in their infancy. In fact, I’m aging myself here, but I depended on my cellular “bag phone” that I typically kept in my truck. So, without cell phones, texting, or free long-distance talking, many times a day she would write me letters. There is definitely something to be said about the old-school hand written letters. Text messaging, instant messaging, and Twitter in today’s society may be convenient but it’s so temporary. Those messages are forever deleted and often feel so impersonal. There is something powerful about a hand-written letter that captures that moment in time...