Budding Romance

The summer after eighth grade is when Scott and I really started spending a lot of time together, and the first thing that comes to my mind is GOD BLESS MY MOTHER.

Without my mom, my budding romance may have withered and died before it even had a chance to get started. The woman was a saint, driving me everywhere I needed to be; it started that summer and continued until Scott and I both got our own driver's licenses. But that first summer my mother was a veritable chauffer. She carted me to the beach, to the movies, the mall, to Scott's summer job at a baseball card and comic book shop where I would just hang out while he worked. Most often was the round trip from my house to Scott's so that he and I could just chill.

Looking back now, I have to wonder if MY MOTHER WAS SMOKING CRACK. Either that or, with me being the last of her four children, she just didn't care anymore. I've often wondered what my mother's reaction would be if NOW I let her in on what was going on at Scott Davis' house when she left me there for the afternoon. I've come to the decision to keep my mouth shut because I have a feeling that, even being seventeen years after the fact, my mother would still get that stern disappointed look on her face and attempt to ground me. Because I actually feel ill when I imagine myself having a fourteen year old daughter doing the same things I was doing at fourteen.

When he turned fifteen, Scott was granted the privilege of no longer having to share a room with his little brother, and he moved into the Davis family's unfinished basement; with cement floors, no windows, and a noisy basement door and creaky stairs being the only way in, it became our make out haven. In the beginning, his room consisted of a drafting table where he could do his art, a stereo balanced on milk crates, and a battered old futon where he would sleep. There was absolutely no form of entertainment, and no reason for us to hang out down there other than to explore each other's bodies and burgeoning sexuality. Scott’s mother had to have known this, but being a child of the sixties and the mother of two boys, she pretty much left us alone. When she did descend into our realm to check on us, under the guise of doing laundry, the noisy door and creaky stairs were warning enough to sit up straight and pretend to be engaged in perfectly innocent conversation.

I would spend the better part of the next six years in that room, and I watched it go through numerous transformations: from baseball cards and comic books to gothic art, through grunge rock, to almost-mature male chic. I fell in love in that room. I gave myself to Scott in that room. I participated in raging fights in that room. I had my heart broken in that room.

Yesterday I received an email from my 12-year old niece that she has her first boyfriend. In the email, she gave me the green light to bombard her with questions. My mind flooded and my heart raced: Holy shit. Is this perfect little innocent child going to be doing the same things I was going at her age? And here’s the problem: I too was the innocent little girl that never did anything wrong. I’d like to think that I was more sexually premature than most, but the truth is that I was a late bloomer according to the standard set by my peers. I have to give Scott a lot of credit for that, though. What horny, teenage guy do you know would have waited four years to have sex with his girlfriend? Scott did.

So I sent my niece the following list of questions in an attempt to be the cool aunt she feels comfortable confiding in:

What's his name?
What's he look like?
How long have you been together?
How'd you get together?
What do you guys talk about?
Have you kissed?
Do you think you'll stay together over the summer?
Do you see him outside of school?

I have been sworn to secrecy, not permitted to breathe a word of this to her father, my older brother. I won’t tell him, but it is going to be hard. Not because I think he should be warned of what his daughter might be getting into, but because I would love to scare the crap out of him with the knowledge that his daughter may turn out to be more like me than he would ever want her to.

Yeah, I’m evil.

Daily Journal, May 16, 2009

Insecurity is one of the most unattractive qualities a woman can posses. This is something I’ve been hearing since I was a teenager. No man wants to deal with an insecure, needy woman. The amazing thing is that the men who most despise this quality, are the men most likely to enhance it.

Insecurity can come in many forms: Fear. Low self esteem. Neediness. Clinginess. Little self worth. My first bout with insecurity came when I was sixteen years old, and it came in the form of raging jealousy. By tenth grade Scott and I were still dating, and I suppose I should have been secure in that simple fact, but I wasn’t. We had broken up three times in as many years. Once because I had second thoughts, and twice because he did. The imbalance of this didn’t do a whole lot for a teenage girl’s self esteem.

Anyway, in tenth grade Scott joined a school-run organization that aided in the acquiring of wilderness skills. I tried to be supportive, and not to make fun of it, but I saw it as a co-ed version of the boy scouts, and thought it was ridiculous. But it made him happy, and it made him feel like he finally belonged somewhere.

You see, while I had managed to keep an even keel of popularity – not part of the popular crowd, but not a downright loser – Scott had struggled with conformity and acceptance from the day he walked through the front doors of the high school. He didn’t play sports, he was extremely good at art, he wore his hair long and hung out with the underdogs. There was even a rumor that he was gay, and that I was simply his beard. So while I became a cheerleader, Scott became one of the earliest Survivors. It turned out to be pretty easy to support the group, listen to stories about it, and put it in the back of my mind when Scott and I were together. Until Jen.

Jen Robinson, whom Scott met through his wilderness group, became the bane of my existence for the next four years. Jen was somewhat of an outcast, like Scott. Jen was an artist, like Scott. Jen listened to the same music, read the same books, shopped in the same stores. Jen was adorable, Jen was funny. Jen got him.

Scott started spending time with Jen outside of Wilderness 101. They would shop together, see movies together, and just hang out together. Many times Jen infiltrated the inner circle that I had gotten used to containing only Scott and I, and occasionally my girl friends and his guy friends, but never the other way around. For starters, I didn’t have any guy friends. I firmly believed in the code set by When Harry Met Sally: Men and women can’t be friends, because the sex part always gets in the way. In the past, any guy that I had attempted to be friends with either wanted to sleep with me, or I had developed a crush on him. Yes, even while I was dating Scott. I never said I was perfect.

And although Scott had seen the movie, and was well aware of my adopted credo, he didn’t subscribe to it himself, and continued to iterate that he and Jen were friends and nothing more. No, he did not find her attractive and no, she did not have the hots for him.

I never believed a single word of it. And for the next four years Jen would come in between Scott and I in a myriad of ways, the best being that Jen and I shared a birthday. Starting with my sixteenth birthday, my birthday would never be mine ever again. Scott also had to shop for Jen, give Jen a present, go to Jen’s party, see Jen.

And so it went all the way through senior year when, at Scott and Jen’s senior prom (because we went to separate high schools so it wasn’t my prom) Scott danced the last dance of the night with Jen. I cried alone at our table, and was finally rescued by one of the guys in Scott’s class that I never could have been friends with, because he was hotter than a pottery kiln.

I lost count of all the times Scott and I screamed, yelled, cried, and broke up because of Jen Robinson. His argument was always that I should just be more secure, and my argument was always that he should be a man and just let her go. Pick me. Choose me. Love me.

I never understood their friendship, he never understood my jealousy. I was never necessarily worried that Scott was going to leave me for Jen; it boiled my blood that someone was closer to him than I was. Jen is not the ultimate reason that Scott and I did not make it, even though I would like to be able to blame her for it. Blaming her would be much easier than blaming myself. But the truth was that Jen was only a symptom of a bigger problem: I needed to be with a man who put me first, above everyone, above all else. I would walk barefoot and backwards over hot coals for a man; all he had to do was make me his first priority. Scott was never going to be that man.

Well, after many years, and many Jen Robinson’s, I finally found that man. Not only did I find him, I fell in love with him and married him. I am absolutely his first priority, and he is mine. He’s my best friend. There’s no one I’d rather spend time with. I would do anything for him. He makes me feel safe, secure, loved, wanted and admired. But here’s the hysterical part: every once in a while my perfect husband has to remind me of something: Insecurity is one of the most unattractive qualities a woman can posses.

Because while I was able to escape the cycle of being with a man who always wanted to be with someone, or something, else, I never escaped my innate insecurity. Now, instead of being jealous of another woman and questioning loyalty, I have manifested self esteem issues.

Am I fat? Is she prettier than me? Do you still love me? Will you still love me if I gain fifteen pounds? What about when I’m old and wrinkly? Are you happy? Am I the best sex you’ve ever had? Are you mad at me? Do you regret marrying me?

These are routine questions in my house, and my loving husband puts up with them most of the time. But on occasion he will let out a low growl, and fire will light in his eyes, and I know I need to let it rest.

Maybe someday - who knows when - I will gather enough self assurance to be secure in the fact that my husband loves me, finds me attractive, and doesn’t spend his spare time looking for and admiring better looking women. Maybe someday I will be comfortable in my own skin, no matter what size it wears. I’m really good at being in love. I’ve been really good at it since I was twelve years old. Maybe someday I’ll learn to love me with as much fervor and desperation as I have loved the amazing, and not so amazing, men in my life.

The First Obstacle

Scott and I quickly stumbled through the awkward beginning of an adolescent relationship. We wordlessly established unspoken rules, pacts and daily meetings. Scott would meet me at my locker every morning, and I would make sure that my girlfriends steered clear to give us our alone time. We would meet in between classes in designated stairwells, hallways, nooks and crannies of the school. And at the end of the day, Scott would walk me to my bus, and we would stand in the shadow of the dumpsters and make out until the very last possible second before the bus’ engines roared to life and we had to run to make it through the closing doors on time.

It was an amazing exploration. Learning to trust someone to be there when you expected them to be. Feeling proud and thrilled as we walked through the hallway holding hands. Discovering the intricacies of French kissing; the rough underside of his tongue, the smooth sides, the soft top. Figuring out the perfect angle to tilt our heads so we didn’t bang teeth or graze lips with teeth. Standing on tiptoe and craning my neck to reach him. Feeling the swollenness of my lips the entire bus ride home. Anticipating the phone conversation we would have that night, full of teenage nonsense and meaningless I love you’s.

We said the words without knowing what they meant. We said them without really feeling them, not knowing that one day, we would feel them so desperately and wish we could take back the first time we had said them to make them more meaningful once they were true. What we should have been saying, at thirteen and fourteen years old, was I’m fascinated by you, I’m insatiably curious about you, I am in awe of you. But when you are thirteen and fourteen, and your heart is full of feelings you can’t find a word for, you say love because you are desperate to be grown up. It is only when you turn eighteen, and then twenty-one, then twenty-five, and finally thirty, that you realize that every single stage of youth is wasted on the young. I’m even positive that, according to a sixty year old, I am wasting the youth of my thirties.

Scott and I got to walk through our comforting routine for three months before it was riotously disrupted. Shortly before the end of the school year, I learned that Scott would not be attending the same high school I would be matriculating to in the fall. Although we had grown up in small town upstate New York where you could still find acres upon acres of undeveloped land, the mid to late seventies had been an extremely popular time to procreate; the result was that one high school was not large enough to accommodate the teenage population of our school district. Therefore, Scott would be attending a high school across town.

We were devastated; if a month in junior high school time represented a lifetime, then attending separate high schools was akin to living on different continents. The inhabitants would be different, the local customs poles apart, and Scott and I would have to struggle through a language barrier. He would make friends that I had nothing in common with, and I would make friends he didn’t like. Our relationship was doomed, and we both knew it. We vowed not to dwell on it, to spend the summer being young and in love, and deal with the hurdle when it came time to jump it.

I remember so much, and so little, about that summer. As with many of those early memories, the summer floats through my mind in flashes of color, smells, sounds and feelings. When I think about that summer I smell chlorine, and I hear the sound of skateboard wheels on new asphalt. I feel the cold of Scott’s new braces pinching my lips as we re-explore the French territory with new metal boundary lines. I taste cotton candy, smell fried dough, and hear the sounds of a small town carnival, the wind through my hair as the Ferris wheel climbs.

What I remember most is how fast it went. One minute it was the last day of eighth grade; I was on top of the world with my steady boyfriend, feeling confident and secure and ready to take on the world. The next thing I knew it was the first day of freshman year, and I was in uncharted territory, alone, so small, and with absolutely no safe harbor.

Scott and I managed to keep our relationship afloat, but we were in for a rough four years.

Another thing that wouldn’t occur to me until years later: we both might have had a much easier time of high school without each other. But love is a funny thing.

Daily Journal, May 8, 2009

One of the things I have discovered about memories, as I have grown older and begun to accumulate a large store of them, is that the most potent ones are the ones that are recalled, without even trying, by the senses.

For example, there are certain smells that are always going to remind me of my childhood: wood smoke, pine trees, Old Spice and Chantilly.

Whenever I hear a song by Sublime, I smile and think of the first few months of dating my husband, when we would sit in my car and listen to 40 oz. to Freedom on repeat, while smoking pot and making out.

Conversely, if I hear the raspy tone of Kurt Cobain I will stop in my tracks and shudder, desperate to make it stop, because Nirvana brings back some horrible memories from high school.

And there are a host of things that can instantly transport me back to being thirteen and those first few months of being Scott Davis’ girlfriend:

The way the air smells right before it rains in April.
The sound of a lawnmower and the feel of fresh-cut grass beneath bare feet.
The creak of chains on a swing set.
The glossy feel of new comic book pages.
The sweet taste of wintergreen lifesavers.

And whatever you do, do not bring me to a little league baseball game in May, where the air is thick with the scent of leather and dirt, the grass is ripe, and teenage girls stomp their feet on the bleachers in loud, supportive cheers. I will stand stock still in the outfield with my eyes closed, clutching my heart and reliving the fleeting and elusive moments of a perfect first love.

The Second Chance

The next eleven months of my life might has well have taken eons. Because in junior high, each month can represent a lifetime, each season a reincarnation.

It is actually pretty fascinating that I stayed fixated on Scott Davis for so long, seeing as how junior high school girls generally have the attention span of a gnat; at that age we change styles, friends and crushes more often than we change our favorite pair of earrings.

But fixated on him I was. I wouldn’t go so far as to say I stalked him – I saved that particular talent for my elder years – but I watched very carefully. I knew exactly where his locker was. I had his class schedule pretty down pat. I knew who he liked, and what kind of action he took about that. I had several spies strategically placed in the cafeteria during his lunch period and in the school yard during his free period. I was never without Intel.

For nine months Scott Davis went without a girlfriend. I was dumbfounded as to why – was he not the hottest guy walking the halls? – but considered myself fortunate. Lack of competition made my quest a bit easier. But alas, his single state of affairs couldn’t continue. In February, Scott Davis starting going out with Mary Parker.

The hussy was a year younger than me, rode my bus and knew of my obsession with Scott. (I mean, at that point Scott was the only one who didn’t know of my obsession with Scott.)

I felt betrayed, but I attempted to move on. I accepted the proposal of one Mike Billings, and had the unfortunate experience of sharing my first French kiss with him; he kissed like a lizard, his tongue darting in and out of my mouth like he was attempting to set a record.

Mike became one of my more short-lived relationships, coming in second by lasting a week. Scott still held the record, due to my temporary insanity, at three days.

In March my luck began to turn. Mary broke up with Scott. I briefly wondered if there was something about him that was purely un-dateable, but quickly changed my mind, and resumed my mission to win back his heart. A girlfriend of mine attempted to help things along by inviting him to her 14th birthday party on the night of March 27, 1992; a date that would go down in history. (My history, which is, of course, the only one of any importance.)

The evening progressed much like the dance had eleven months prior, with childish games and coy flirting. At one point, and I’m not sure how but didn’t really care, I ended up sitting on Scott’s lap. It’s a weird thing to be a teenager and find yourself on the lap of the boy you like. You shift your weight, not letting your feet leave the floor, for fear that your 100-pound frame will seem too heavy to him, your but too bony, your position too awkward. With all the thinking that goes into it, the enjoyment is virtually sucked dry. But the knowledge that I had been there? In Scott Davis’ lap? Oh, I rode that high for the rest of the night and a few days after.

We danced around each other for the better part of the evening – again. The big difference was that this time I was mentally willing him to take action, and watching the clock, counting down until the arrival of the parents, losing heart as each minute ticked by.

And then somehow (once again the details of how seem less important than the fact of) we were outside, alone on Sara’s back patio. A light drizzle was starting. I’ll never forget that. I was being drizzled on, waiting for this beautiful boy to make me his girlfriend.

He took his time about it, so much so that I was damp, but ask he did.

And it was, hands down, the best moment in my thirteen years on the earth.

Hallelujah, here was my second chance. My dream boy, right in front of me for the taking.

And what the hell was I supposed to do with that?

Thank God Scott knew what to do.

He smiled, a crooked, charming, perfect smile, and then leaned in for the kiss. This time there was no trace of a lizard, no desperate competition. It was slow, and soft, and sweet, and sensual. All things that should not be allowed at thirteen, but there they were.

For the first time in my life my heart plummeted to my toes, my pulse quickened, my breath became shaky. All I could think was, so this is it, and, God, please don’t let me go.

I would spend the better part of the next seven years thinking those same thoughts.

Daily Journal, May 4, 2009

Being the genius that I am, I kept journals of all my adolescent follies – ages twelve through twenty. I went searching for these journals last night, because I couldn’t remember how old I was the first time Scott and I had sex. Was it right before he turned seventeen, or right before he turned eighteen?

Here’s the hysterical part. There are pages upon pages of my teenage angst, and I didn’t write a single word about our first time together.

I sat down on the floor in front of my bookshelf, determined that I had just missed it the first time through. I began flipping, and reading snippets from the very beginning, even though I know we didn’t have sex when I was twelve. And as I flipped and read, and flipped and read, I became more and more surprised. Aside from the detailed account of how we got back together that second time in March, the things that I had written about were not the most memorable moments of my relationship with Scott. They were not the good times that I have such warm, fuzzy feelings about. I had written about all the crap times, and all the times he had pissed me off and broken my heart. There are gaps equaling up to six months, and these must have been the times I was too happy, and too preoccupied with love to write about what was happening.

I really never did write about our first time.

I didn’t write about the hours I sat with him with he worked at a baseball card shop in a small strip mall.

I didn’t write about our senior proms.

I didn’t write about graduation.

I didn't write about the first full night we spent in each other's arms.

I didn't write about the day he asked me to marry him.

I suppose it’s a damn good thing I remember these things, and that I’m writing about them now.

Because I’d be willing to bet I wouldn’t remember them forever.

The First Mistake

When I returned to school the Monday after I became Scott Davis’ girlfriend, the first thing I did was break up with him.

And to this day, I have absolutely no idea why. I just don’t remember.

Maybe I was scared at the idea of being someone’s girlfriend, even though I had been before. Lauren could have talked me out of it sometime over the weekend - who knows? It’s a mystery, buried in the bottom of my subconscious underneath my memories of figure skating lessons, religious education classes and frog dissection.

However, I do remember where and how it happened. The junior high school cafeteria, table closest to the lobby. He wasn’t fazed when I told him I didn’t want to be his girlfriend. Didn’t disturb him even a little. And the second he got up to walk away, I regretted every single word that had just come out of my mouth. I wanted to call after him, tell him I was just kidding, plead temporary insanity. But I didn’t. I watched him walk away, my heart sinking with every step he took.

Three weeks later Scott was dating another girl, and I was still regretting that moment in the cafeteria.

So for the next eleven months I pined after Scott Davis, watched his every move, and conceived intricate plots to get him to ask me to be his girlfriend again.

It was the longest eleven months of my life.

Daily Journal, May 2, 2009

Last night I was in a hideous car crash. In the pouring rain, my car skidded to avoid a bicycler and I careened over a steep cliff. I felt absolute terror the moment I realized the car was going to flip, and I braced myself for the impact, already beginning to cry.

The next thing I knew I was seated on the side of the road, scraped, bruised and mangled, surveying the wreckage all around me. My crash had apparently started a chain of events involving four more cars and numerous other individuals. We all sat, in various states of injury, waiting for the ambulances to arrive. I knew that the accident was my fault, and I watched some of those around me fade out to death, I knew I would wear this responsibility like a scarlet letter for the rest of my life.

Paramedics began to arrive, shuttling the wounded to the nearest hospital, sirens screaming as they left.

My ambulance never came.

But Scott did.

He arrived in the nick of time, whisked me to the hospital and made sure I was taken care of. He was the one to call my parents, to take care of the insurance paperwork. He talked to the ER doctors about my injuries, treatment and recovery. He held my hand while I gave a statement to the police.

All of this happened while I slept next to my husband. My perfect, gorgeous, understanding, funny, amazing husband.

So what does it mean that I had a dream about making a complete mess of things, and Scott being there to clean it up?

I have some theories.

I’m sure a good shrink would, too.

The Beginning

By the time I was twelve years old, I was already thoroughly hooked on boys. In fact, I’m pretty sure I had started earlier than any of my contemporaries, at seven years old. Brian wasn’t my first love, but he was first infatuation. We would sit next to each other in the music circle, holding hands, him bringing up the end of the semi-circle of boys, me bringing up the end of the girls. Over the next five years I had several boyfriends and more than a few crushes, experienced my first kiss and suffered through my first rejection. So when Scott entered my universe, I was an old hand at the game that pre-teen boys and girls played.

It started at a junior high school dance. Wild Video Dance Party, they called it, and it was the talk of the halls for weeks before the event. My best friend and I agonized over preparations and plans – what we would wear, how we would do our hair, whose house we would sleep at that night, whose parents would drive. A lot of couples had arrangements to meet at the dance; in a rare moment when we were both single, Lauren and I were going stag.

On the Friday night of the dance, Lauren’s mother – chosen as the lesser of the embarrassing parents – dropped us off at the junior high and left us in a state of staggering giddiness. Our classmates were pouring through the front doors, mingling in the lobby, hovering at the entrance to the gym. Music thrummed from giant speakers set up in the corners, and a huge screen took up the back wall of the gym, alternating between colorful light shows and modern day videos straight from MTV. Completely equipped with balloons, streamers, confetti and a table holding snacks and a giant punch bowl, our junior high gymnasium had been transformed into the perfect cliché of a school dance.

Lauren and I joined the ranks of the minglers and hoverers, making conversation and trying to appear cool and aloof. It was at that point that I began to notice Scott.He didn’t necessarily stand out in a crowd, but he didn’t blend in either.

He was taller than most of the other boys, and towered over all of the girls. Ridiculously skinny with dark hair that swung just below his ears, baggy jeans and a baseball cap pulled low over his brow, at that moment I had no idea that his particular physicality would eventually become my type.

And so the dance began. Not the awkward swaying that took place in the dark gymnasium, but the tango that Scott and I would engage in over the course of the next three hours.

The rest of what I remember about that night comes in bright flashes, brief snippets and fleeting images. I can see Scott and I weaving between the masses, stealing glances at one another, talking to our friends, each pretending not to notice the other. I vaguely remember a hesitant approach, a stilted conversation. I know I grabbed his hat right off his head and ran with it, knowing he would chase me, desperate to feel his arms around me. Lauren, and whoever Scott was with, because that part escapes me, urging us on, feeding the fire and instigating innocent flirtation.

I remember his smile from that night. So much of what I remember about Scott involves his smile, and his laugh. Both were charming, infectious and oh so appealing.

All of this flickers by me in fragmented recollections, and then suddenly my memory enters slow motion. Scott and I are dancing. The gym is dark, and I can hear sneakers clumsily squeaking across the floor. More Than Words by Extreme is playing soft and sweet in the background. Scott’s arms are awkward around me, and I’m not quite sure what to do with my own hands, where to look, if I should say anything. He smells like sweat and nerves and teenage boy. My mouth is dry and my heart is racing. I’m terrified of stepping on his feet, tripping over my own, making a fool of myself. Neither of us says a word for the duration of the song, but somewhere toward the end Scott pulls me, almost imperceptibly, closer, and I rest my head on his chest. I can hear his heart beating almost as fast as my own, and take comfort in the fact that he’s just as anxious as I am.

When the song ends, so does my memory. I can’t recall what we did next - if we danced again, or if that truly signified the end of the night, since the next thing I remember is leaving.

I’m reluctantly walking toward the sidewalk with Lauren while she looks out for her mom. Scott is pacing the sidewalk a few yards down. A minivan pulls to the curb, and he waves, his eyes darting to me. He walks to the van, leans in the window, and then turns back in my direction. He asks to talk to me for a second. We return to the lobby, turn a corner down a deserted hallway. He asks me if I’ll be his girlfriend, and when I nod, he leans down to give me one of the sweetest kisses I’ll ever experience, ending it by taking off his hat and placing it on my head.

We walk back to the parking lot, and he disappears into the minivan. Lauren and I are giddy with my experience, because at age twelve, what happens to you also happens to your best friend. I knew we would stay up all night, reliving every moment of my night with Scott. But part of the magic had gone as soon as he had.

And so it began.

Daily Journal, May 1, 2009

Once we become adults, I don’t think enough credit is given to young love - especially not young first love. It’s easy to discount it. In fact, I remember plenty of individuals who readily discounted my very real relationship with Scott. Even my own parents, who were themselves elementary school sweethearts, urged me not to tie myself down to one guy for the duration of my high school career.

Scott and I spent a lot of time throughout the course of our relationship breaking up and getting back together. Each time we broke up our families would hold a collective breath, wondering is this it? And each time we would get back together, they would heed us that it wouldn’t last.

Am I still with him, nineteen years after that first dance?

No.

But I will never believe that our final break up stemmed from the fact that we started dating so young. It came down to the same thing almost all break ups come down to: a basic incompatibility that cannot be reconciled, not matter how much you love one another.

It drove me absolutely crazy that my feelings for Scott were never taken seriously, so when I see young couples today, or co-workers talk about their teenage daughters’ “flings”, I am on the side of the teenagers, empathizing through that time of discovery, amazement and agony. Because the fact of the matter is, after your first love, nothing may ever be so real again.

Welcome to the Literary Chick

You know that cliché about wanting to write since being old enough to hold a pencil? Yeah, that’s me. Six years old, writing stories about Herman - an elephant who ran away from home to join the circus.

For a long time I shied away from the genre I was drawn to write, because that pull came from Chick Lit.

But those are the types of stories that run through my veins, and whisper to me in the middle of the night. I love the dynamic among females, and have always been fascinated by the interaction between men and women. I am a hopeless romantic, and have been in love with love since I first tumbled awkwardly into it.

For the past twenty-five years I’ve been writing what I know, and have been blessed enough to publish a few things along the way. For the past four months I have been writing from my soul, pouring out what – fingers crossed, knock on wood – will soon be my first full-length novel.

Yet even as my novel’s word count grows, there is another story that I yearn to tell.

It is my real life one, and it goes something like this:

A few years ago, I was lucky enough to find the man of my dreams. We met, fell in lust, annoyed the crap out of each other, broke up, got back together, fell in love, moved in together, annoyed the crap out of each other, found a rhythm, and finally got married. Now we spend every day living our own version of happily ever after.

All of this occurred just shy of my turning thirty, so it should go without saying that while my husband will be my last love, he certainly was not my first.

The illustrious position of first love goes to my junior high school sweetheart, who was incidentally also my high school sweetheart and my college sweetheart.

It recently occurred to me that I spent more years – seven of them to be exact – with my first love than I have so far with my last.

And even though my husband is my best friend, the answer to all my prayers, and the force that keeps me balanced, I still think of the first. I can still wake feeling off kilter, having just dreamed about him. I can smell him with the first rain of every season. I always think of him in any place that sells comic books.

I’d be willing to bet I’m not the only one who does this.

And yet no one talks about it.

If you’re lucky, you’ve experienced the magic that is a first love. And whether or not you have, we’ve all had a journey out of childhood, into adolescence, bound for the world populated by adults.

Everyone has a story to tell.

This is mine.