My friends and family will never let me forget my first love. He was a part of my life during an important part of my personal development and his influence will always be felt.
I was orphaned as a teen. After my parents died, I became incredibly irrational. I wanted to leave this plane of existence, end it all, and be with them. My boyfriend ratted me out, made me visit shrinks and, low and behold, I grew up to be a psychotherapist.
I am alive because he was there. I am what I am because of the path he led me to take.
His break-up note will always be impressed in my mind. I can see it clear as day. As a college bound high school senior, I received a note that said
"I'll get in the way of the things you wanted to accomplish in life, so I'm leaving you."
At the time I thought that was a cover story for a 17 year old that wanted a taste of someone else, so I moved on. Although I moved on, I never could forget him. I could never stop loving him either.
Within six-months of our break-up, I was sexually assaulted. I remember thinking to myself that the assault must have been the only way God could get another man to touch me. I also remember being thankful that my dear friend was long gone and would never see the pain in my face. I swore he would never find out.
My friends said he was trying to find me during those weeks I was holed up in my apartment trying to find the pieces of my soul that the attacker stole. A neighbor actually told me that he came to the apartment looking for me and would spend time standing outside the window, trying to peer inside. I did not believe it and I never answered the door. It took me a lot of therapy to get comfortable enough to answer my door again or to even open the shades wide enough to let the sunlight warm up the window.
I prayed the figure outside my window was not him. I took solace in the fact that my dear first boyfriend was long gone, living his life, and would be safe from the drama that seemed to invade my life.
While convalescing from the trauma, I never was alone. My neighbors and friends would stay with me constantly. They told me that I would talk in my sleep. They would ask who the man I spoke about was. Apparently, I yelled his name in my sleep.
It seems, that I still do to this very day.
In my early twenties, I was misdiagnosed with a brain tumor. On hearing the diagnosis, my first thought was that I was so glad that my old flame ran away as this would just be another crappy drama to see me through. He sure dodged a bullet when he left.
That year, I sent him a birthday card, thinking it would be my last opportunity to thank him for saving my life. I was careful to pick a bland card that just celebrated the fact he was born and did not write anything in it, I just signed my name. At the time, I was appreciating every day I had left and was grateful that he had given me five extra years to smell the flowers. I figured when he saw my obituary, he would know what that was all about.
Of course, when months passed and my condition had not worsened, the doctors ran more tests and realized that I did not have a brain tumor. Then, I was really embarrassed for contacting him.
When I realized that I had more time, I tried to keep myself too busy to have time to think. I got a job, went to school, and got married.
All the while, the dreams of him persisted. I was actually hypnotized not to see his face in my dreams. It did not work, probably because people still speak of him.
My first boyfriend was legendary for his fashion sense. He was very unique (like most of us in the 80's were). Most of my male friends were jeans and t-shirt jock types, so they failed to understand my boyfriend's unique, yet expressive, fashion sense. To me, though, he was better looking and hotter than any rock star my girlfriends were fawning over. That's the truth of it.
A decade after our break-up, my then husband and I were on our way home from the hospital with our new born daughter. I was tired, cranky, and needed sleep. We drove by a group of young men uniquely dressed and my spouse made a rude comment about how my ex-boyfriend dressed. My spouse knows many of my friends from high school, so, in a sense - he knows all those secrets that I thought would die upon my graduation.
His comment upset me. Invoking my former boyfriend's name in such a negative fashion wasn't very nice either. My irritation combined with a lack of sleep led me to take an incredibly sharp tone with the man.
My spouse was quickly informed that he "will never speak ill of [my first love] again in my presence. If it were not for [my first love] I would not be here, we would not be married, and [my spouse] would not have this child!"
He has never said a bad word about him since. My spouse has told me, though, that he incident reassured him that I will never betray him or allow another human being to speak ill of him after we divorce. He's right. Trashing your ex is a red-flag: it means that you'll eventually trash a current love.
Thinking about it, no one ever has a bad word to say about my first love in front of me. Relatives will ask about him once in a while. I have one relative who laments that my former boyfriend was the only person that I ever listened to. Well, he did make a lot of sense. I listen to good advice.
Over the years, my first love has become less real to me. He was considered a figure in my imagination that inspired me to succeed in whatever I do. If someone cared enough about my life, the least I could do is to try to make something of it. The truth is, he could never be in the way of the things that I do because he is the inspiration.
Well, he seemed to be a figment of my imagination locked away in my memory. That is, until we actually met again. I still do not know what to think about the confusing cascade of emotions that were brought up the day I first heard his beautiful voice after 22 years.
I do not know why God would bring him into my life right when the walls around me are collapsing. All I know is that the last thing I want to do right now is feel. I want to be numb and free of the pain of a marriage that crumbled along time ago. Numbness was my escape. Now, I remember what love feels like. I don't like it, it hurts to want for something that is just out of reach.
Right now, love is pain. I do not want to feel it. I was happy in the fact that the first man I loved was just an unreal ghostly memory embedded in the deepest part of my psyche. Then, God brought living proof that I can still feel love (and a few inappropriate unnamed feelings) for a real human being.
I do not know what to make of it, darn it. I just want to run away and hide in a freezer somewhere.
Life is so weird.
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