In this crazy thing we call life, there are people, places and things that affect us until the day we either forget (which means they/it wasn't that important or astounding) or until we... yeah, corny, I know.
Do any of you remember your first love? Not just someone you once loved, but the first time you realized what it meant to actually, truly, love. Do they still hold a secret place in your heart? Do you sometimes wonder how they are doing? What they might be doing? How life treated them? Who they ended up with?
Quarantine has been a tumultuous time. We have good days, we have bad days and we have in-between days. I've found that I have a lot of time to read. Some books are 'fun' books, books that I read just to take my mind off things. Some are harder, some belong to the timeless literary list of 'must reads!' There are books that make me laugh, some that make me cry. Some that make me wonder what this life has in store for me. But the ones that make me sad are the ones that also make me think, make me reflect.
I met my first real love almost exactly 11 years ago.
I had been in a relationship before but at the young age of 17 you want to believe you love someone without really knowing what it means. At the tender age of 19, almost 20, I was naive enough to still believe in happily ever after. It was a chance meeting that would change my life, and my musings of happily ever after, forever. I met him through a friend of mine, a friend who wanted to meet him. Apparently he had made a name for himself, I didn't know who he was (which may have made me more attractive in his eyes). There was something about his knowing gaze when I fist saw him that pulled at me. Like he knew that he would become someone special. Someone that, no matter what phase of my life I would find myself in, would always, always, hold a piece of my heart.
Falling in love was easy. It usually is, when you're getting to know someone who only shows you what he wants you to see. Someone who can't know how, in that short while, he's going to change your life forever. He was interesting, and interested. And despite our 16 year age difference, he was fascinating and opened my eyes to an industry I hadn't really paid much attention to before I met him. He was the type of person that walked into a room and captured everyone's attention. He told his stories with a flourish and people would hang on to every word. I felt honored to be seen with him, I felt special. I was blinded by his light, his charisma, his flair for the dramatic, his insatiable need to be the center of attention.
I was sure that when he said 'I love you too', that he meant it.
Little did I know that on a beautiful summer day, almost half a world away, reality would come crashing down around me. I came to the realization that not only was I NOT The One, apparently I wasn't even The Only One. The facts were laid out of front of me. 'When it walks like a duck...' came a message on Facebook. I was in denial, I didn't want to believe what was being said, being proven right in front of my eyes. But no matter what, the facts were there, for me to read, over and over and over again. The heart wrenching pain, the tears, the cursing of him name, of his sole existence, is something I will never forget. The thought of it all still makes my heart squeeze tight. Is that still pain? or is it the bodys natural reaction when reminiscing about such grief?
How, you ask, does this man still hold a piece of my heart? Easy, he was the first one I gave it to, the fist one to hold it in his hands and squeeze the life out of it. Somehow, when he let go, I left a piece of it with him. Even now, and I shake my head at the thought, I feel a connection. Maybe it's still the naive girl, who wishes things had ended differently, or hadn't ended at all, that feels this. There have been times though, in the past 11 years, where the timing of a random text or a published article, which incited a phone call from my end, have made me wonder.. even my mother, forever fervently opposed to said relationship for the duration, had a smile on her face after said phone call 2 years ago and said something along the lines of 'what's with the two of you?'
In the 11 years since that fateful day in New York City when I met him, I have made a life for myself that I'm okay with. Not always happy, often apprehensive; loneliness engulfs me despite my 2 wonderful children.
But trust? Yes, I definitely have trust issues. I'm still learning that I am enough, that I have something to offer and that maybe, some day, I'll meet someone again. Someone who loves me for me, for who and what I am
Maybe. Someday..
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