The Ache

I was blog surfing and came across this blog, and the entry for 12/5/05 got me to thinking.

Her name was Linda. She was in the year behind mine in high school. She had kind of a big nose and straight, flat, blond hair. Pretty, but I guess not the most attractive girl in her class. I don't know what she had or what she did, but she had me hooked. Of course, she wasn't trying to hook me...as a matter of fact, she didn't WANT to hook me. But there I was, drooling over her like a puppy hoping for a treat.

It went on like that for two and a half years. I had even gotten up the courage to ask her out at the end of my sophomore year, but she said no. Still, I couldn't shake the feelings. I couldn't eat. I couldn't sleep. As a hormone-soaked teenage boy, I couldn't even fantasize about her, so pure was my love for her. I reserved those fantasies for a girl named Jane who, believe it or not, was pretty plain. Jane hated me, so I did really nasty things with her and to her...in my fantasies. But Linda was always kind to me, laughing at my jokes and my silliness, stoking that flame that burned for her deep inside my aching chest.

During my senior year she started dating a boy from her own class, someone who participated in the same extra-curricular activity that Linda and I and all my closest friends did. He was already near the bottom of the list of people I liked, so when they started dating he was easily transferred to my list of enemies.

Midway through the second semester they broke up. I had started seeing a girl, but the feelings just weren't there for me. When Linda became free again (I like that... free "again" at 16) I was that drooling puppy all over again. But it was different. I was different. I had become the image of my pain: brooding, sullen, withdrawn. One day Linda asked me "What's the matter?"

My answer really threw her: "You."

That touched off a long conversation about how I felt about her and, a few days later, while driving her home after an activity, she grabbed my hand on the car seat. And the ensuing five months were a daily reminder of how mismatched we really were. I was jealous, suspicious. She was still pining for her previous boyfriend. No, really, she was. That's the only part I was right about. We went to the Prom together. We made out a few times, a couple of frantic gropes, and then we barely saw each other the entire summer after I graduated.

I had begun the unfortunate habit of driving past her house -- or worse, sitting in front of her house -- every night as a result of my waiting for her to call me, which she never did, until one evening when I saw her get into the car of her previous boyfriend. This prompted a call to her the next day -- my birthday -- during which I confronted her about it, and she admitted it, and we broke up.

So the wall went up around my heart. And it stayed there for a solid year before I tried to let anyone in. And then I trusted no one, expected everyone to abandon me, and this way affected every relationship I hoped would become intimate until one day, sixteen years later, I destroyed a relationship -- hell, it was barely a friendship yet -- in fantastic fashion simply through suspicion and mistrust. The wall had a gate, and the gate finally closed. It was settled. I was meant for no one, and no one was meant for me. I had given up.

And that's precisely why I'm married today. The internet re-acquaintance with someone I had known since the eighth grade was something which, in the past, I would have tried to cultivate, develop, and then, because it wasn't going the way I thought it should, would foster suspicion and jealousy, and then I would destroy and think it wasn't my fault. This time I kept my distance. But in staying back I was able to relax and be myself, which won HER heart.

But this isn't about my wife. I love her dearly, trust her deeply, and I'm not the least bit worried about her straying. It's a wonderfully nice feeling to be secure. But secure isn't that heady, first hill on a roller-coaster sensation that makes you think you'll scream, cry, or wet your pants.

What this is about is first loves. I'm in my 40s now and, as you could probably tell by my telling (?!), the events with Linda are to me as though they occurred yesterday. The pain and the heartache, the anger and despair I felt as a kid then still bubble up when I recall the image of her getting into that car. I should hate her for what she did to me, but I don't.

I often find myself wondering what she's doing today. What became of her? Who did she marry? How many kids? I wonder if she ever thinks about me, if she allows herself not to think of me as a stalker, as the term applies today, but rather that sweet, sad, dumb kid who didn't know anything about how to make her happy. The kind of happy I hope she is now.

What this reminiscence about first love does for me, however, is make me realize that, though Linda was the first girl I loved, my wife is the first (and only!) girl that ever loved me. After Linda and about a half dozen girls on whom I blamed my faults, I never thought I'd find someone who fills me, who completes me, who makes me feel right.

But here I am.