My First Love

I fell in love with the same girl three times.  Once at six, again at fourteen, and the last time at twenty.  I'll cut to the chase now and tell you it never worked out, and I'm not writing this to say I wish it had.  Although it would not have been in any way objectionable if it had.  And I'm certainly not writing this to embarrass said girl, who is now nearly forty, happily married, and a mother multiple times over.  Maybe she knows this story, maybe not.  But a young friend of mine is walking through life's journey, and he just might find something here to help.  Even if he doesn't, it's a story worth telling.

 

She was new in class; I was not.  I was six and she was five.  I was shorter and she was taller.  And she was so cute, with long blonde hair and big blue eyes and the sweetest smile.  And she was smart, which apparently has always been an attractive quality in women for me.

 

Now I have memories about those early days which she doesn't share--or perhaps selectively forgot.  Whether real or imagined, they are fond memories of several secretive rendezvous behind the gym at recess in which our lips were introduced.  Now the last time I ever mentioned this to her, when were twelve, she turned beet red and adamantly denied that any such thing ever took place.  Perhaps she's right (and if you're reading this, dear friend, please don't hate me for telling this part)...but I also remember being interrogated by my parents because I came home with my lips unusually swollen and red.  And I remember confessing in a torrent of tears that I had kissed a girl behind the gym, something my parents encouraged me not to do again any time soon.  Today, they'd throw me out of school for sexual harassment.  But then, well, it was the Seventies...

 

There is even a picture in existence in which we were standing side by side, me having lost my two front teeth, with swollen red lips, and a little paper heart I had cut out with my Kindergarten scissors and affixed to my chest--just to announce to the world that I was standing next to the girl I intended to love FOR-EV-ER!  Then I moved away.  And I came back.  And I was more convinced than ever that she was still the girl for me.  I may have even told her so, and I may also have mentioned that God might be intertwining our destinies or some other silly notion like that.  She didn't take me up on my offer to be soul mates, and time went on.  There were other crushes that I had, but I tell you, she was the first girl I ever loved.

 

Skip forward to teenhood, to puberty, and to feeling certain attractions that are just inexplicable.  First was the summer reading program in which were co-volunteers at the local library.  We were both thirteen.  I was still shorter, and she was taller.  And she was still cute, with long blonde hair and big blue eyes and the sweetest smile.  And she was smart.  Did I mention that she was smart?  And cute?

 

I stayed on the farm for two weeks with my great-grandparents that summer, who had been a couple since they were about thirteen, and married since they were eighteen, and they loved each other very much.  And they asked me if I had a girlfriend.  I said no, but I confided in these two very old people that there was someone special, someone I liked.  They asked me where, and I told them, "Skellytown."  And my Pappy had all sorts of suggestions for me.  He suggested I get a motorcycle and get her on behind me, and then pop a wheelie so that she would have to hold on real tight!  That might have worked...if I had known how to ride a motorcycle.  And also if I wasn't a menace to everyone in sight whenever I got on board a recreational vehicle.  Always after that, anytime I saw Pappy and Granny, they would always ask me if I had a girlfriend, and was she from Skellytown.  Can I just say, I NEVER had a girlfriend from Skellytown.

 

After my fourteenth birthday, I finally worked up the courage to actually ask her to "go with me", which is what we did in the Eighties.  I don't know what kids call it now, but that was back in the day when people were "going together."  Stupid me, I did it at a football game, during the third quarter, after half-time when everyone was going for snacks, and I did it in front of a mutual friend.  For the record, guys, don't ever ask a girl to "go" with you when there are people around.  Just in case things don't go the way you planned.  That way, no one will be there to witness your total and abject humiliation when she says, "We're just too good of friends."  I also gotta tell you, girls, that's a good way to ruin a beautiful friendship and break a heart in the process.  I could have handled, "I just don't like you enough."  But hearing, "I like you too much to go with you" is just AW-FUL!

 

Of course, it didn't help when an older, taller, darker, handsomer dude got the answer I was looking for, and I had to witness their togetherness.  With my parents.  Who knew of my fondness for said cute and smart blonde.  And then I had to answer their question:  What ever happened between you two?  Yeah, not one of my best memories.

 

I moved away and I didn't see her again for a very long time, except for brief instances when I was home visiting and friends got together with friends.  But one summer between college semesters I was back and I gave her a call and we got together for, what could arguably be called, one of the best times I ever spent with anyone back in those days.  We were both nineteen.  I was shorter, she was taller.  And she was absolutely beautiful, with long blonde hair and big blue eyes and the sweetest smile.  We laughed and cried and talked and remembered together--though not the episodes I just recounted--until the wee hours of the morning.  And ever since I have kicked myself for bad timing.  She was single and available, and I was hanging on to a failing relationship that self-destructed in two weeks time.  I even remember telling her, "If I was single, I'd really be chasing you right now."  Not literally of course, around the coffee table or anything.  But if I had been unattached, that summer MIGHT have been the start of something special.  Because for the third time in my life, I fell in love with this wonderful girl.

 

Shortly after I turned twenty, my heart broken by someone I would have been better off without anyway, I called my lifelong friend, intent on telling her how I felt about her, how I had always felt about her.  Only to have her answer the phone, excited to hear from me, because she thought I was someone else.  Someone with the same name as me, the same chosen profession as me, and coincidentally, an eerily similar weekend story to tell.  Imagine both of our embarrassments when we each realized that neither was having the same conversation with the other.  So I never got that chance...and a year later I attended her wedding.  And what a beautiful bride she was, marrying someone taller, darker, and handsomer than I.  The perfect man for the perfect woman.  And the rest, as they say, is history.

 

Is there a point to this confession, of a lifelong love that never happened?  Let me put it like this:  I have genuinely been in love many times in my forty years of living.  Of course, that also means that my love has most often been unrequited, unreturned, and sometimes even unrealized by the object of my affections.  Maybe it's a mistake to think this, but I suspect there may have been others who felt that way about me, and found those feelings not mutual.  But I remain convinced that one day, I will share the kind of love I've always had to give with the woman who loves me in the very same way. 

 

And it will have been worth the wait!

 

*****

 

NOTE TO READERS:  If you have known me long enough, you may think you know who SHE is.  Even if you're right, please keep it to yourself.  There's no need for everyone to know.  :)  And if YOU are reading this, I hope you look back on our friendship with as much happiness as I do.  At forty, hopefully we can appreciate the follies of youth...